Lexical Gridlock

Too many words. They're trying to get out, but they can't. It's gridlock not unlike LA traffic. I would very much like to scream. Or cry. Or maybe both. I haven't decided yet. The whole thing is being deferred until I get out of the office to someplace... else. Not home. I'll just fall asleep like I've been doing with disturbing regularity for who knows how long. I've been wishing for Thursday (and counseling) since I woke up this morning.

Random Comments

This week is sucking in so many ways.

I have started thinking about looking for a new job. It's getting to be time to start actually looking. Trouble is, I have no idea what to look for. I only know that certain dynamics are closing in on the level of intolerable. Plenty more I could say on this subject, but I'll leave it there for now.

The inevitable has finally happened. Grandma has been moved permanently to a "Care & Rehabilitation Center." It's better for her this way. It's better for my aunt and uncle this way. The house, though, could easily be a point of contention. I hope Dad and his sibs can find a good way to resolve that detail.

I was still wide awake at 1:45 this morning.

Music in the Park looks like it might be the highlight of the week again. Being not by myself all the time is a good thing.

My complex has a pool. I will be in it as soon after I get home as humanly possible.

I am way too fragile, and I am not facing that reality very well at the moment.

EDIT: Yay, an opportunity for me to be helpful showed up in Google Reader. Something good! :)

It is Time

I have tried hard to not close off over the last few months, to not shut down, to not isolate myself. I think that, for the most part, I've succeeded. There have been times, however, when I've retreated. I suspect that this may have been healthy, but since healthy is wholly unfamiliar to me, that's just a guess. It's a strange place to be, really. I know I'm dealing with the insanity better than I did two years ago. I don't know if I'm getting it quite right, but at least I no longer have it all wrong!

That said, I think I'm ready to engage life again. Not to the point of dating impertinent Hindu twirps, of course, but I think I've recovered sufficiently to get back to living.

Maybe I'll even manage some real blogging again!

Meanwhile, Wall-E is definitely worth the cost of a trip to the theater. Prince Caspian was ok, though not particularly reflective of the book it's based on.

Reorganizing...

Pretty much everything. Again.

Things don't make sense right now.

Something significant could be in the works, but I don't know this for sure. Neither do I know what it would be. All I know is I'm experiencing a great deal of unsettledness. Again.

So. What's next for the Spidey?

Someday I May Laugh About This

But for now I'm a bit peeved. The house wherein I am now renting a room and where I have slept the last two nights (if you use a very loose interpretation of the word "sleep") has a button on its deadbolt. If said button is engaged, even someone with a key cannot unlock the bolt.

I got back from school at 11. I'm now spending the night at my parents' house, because, you guessed it, I'm locked out.

What a Novel Idea!

About halfway through liturgy today I realized a few things.

1. It's Mother's Day.
2. There was not going to be a Mother's Day sermon. (The homily was on the reading from Acts.)
   
3. I'll never have to sit through another well-intentioned but just plain wrong Mother's Day sermon ever again. (No more plastic "jewels!")
   

And when I found myself thinking this, I told myself, Well, duh. Yes, had I considered it, I would not have been surprised. However, Mother's Day sermons aren't exactly high on my list of topics for contemplation!

Please Make Another Way

Holy is the Lord

Andrew Peterson
from "City on a Hill: The Gathering"

Wake up little Isaac
And rub your tired eyes
Go and kiss your mama
We’ll be gone a little while
Come and walk beside me
Come and hold your papa’s hand
I go to make an altar
And to offer up my lamb

I waited on the Lord
And in a waking dream He came
Riding on a wind across the sand
He spoke my name
“Here I am”, I whispered
And I waited in the dark
The answer was a sword
That came down hard upon my heart

Holy is the Lord
Holy is the Lord
And the Lord I will obey
Lord, help me I don’t know the way

So take me to the mountain
I will follow where You lead
There I’ll lay the body
Of the boy You gave to me
And even though You take him
Still I ever will obey
But Maker of this mountain, please
Make another way

What's On My Mind

• I have a headache.
  
  
• We have a French intern for the next three months.
  
  
• Poor Vladimir the Laptop is not doing well, and my brilliant plan of getting a docking station did not work as well as I had hoped. Today, he's going to go home with one of the Chamber computer gurus to see what he can do.
  
  
• I have to move. I can't afford to live in my apartment, pay my regular bills, and deal with the financial dramas that have plagued me in the last few months. So I'm looking for a room to rent.
  
  
• With all this in mind, I'm fine. Amazing. It's drama again, which is basically business as usual, but it's not the end of the world, and this could eventually lead to something better.
  
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  Now playing: Pfr - See The Sun Again
  via FoxyTunes
  

Double Tagged!

Both Patrick (in March!) AND Africa Kid have tagged me for the book meme that's been floating around. Of course, I only have internet when I'm away from my books, so this is a complex endeavor. However, with tags from two worthy sources, I expect that I might post something fairly soon.

Just Five More Minutes, Mom!

I am so incredibly tired. I would take a nap right now if I weren't at work. Alas, it's Wednesday, and thus the Chamber owns me until 9 pm.

Is a sufficient amount of sleep really too much to ask for?

What Gives?

I seem to have developed a taste for red wine. Never liked the stuff before. At all. As recently as last April, I found reds of all kinds completely undrinkable. However, I acquired a bottle of red not long ago, and I drank a glass of it today. What in the world!

Also, what is the deal with the stalwart Evangelical Christian leaders and Ann Coulter(!) bailing on the GOP to back Hillary? Clearly, I am not one of their minions. (Though I must say I've always distrusted the bandwagon.) Hillary frightens me. Not that McCain is any better. Still, I have to wonder how in the world they came to that conclusion. Politics truly makes strange bedfellows.

Honestly, I know that plenty of people like her, and that's fine. I don't trust her. Neither do I trust McCain. That leaves Obama. I guess I'm outting myself here, because (having no tv) what little I've seen of him makes him look a heckuva lot better than the other two. But there's still eight months and change until the election. I guess I'm one of those much sought after Undecideds (though there are definite leanings).

My parents would freak out if they knew.

Concerning Countdowns

There is one hour left in 2007. Relative to my timezone, of course. Mom, sc0tlas, and I are having our traditional excessive finger foods and movie marathon. (Evan Almighty, Hello Dolly, which we treated as a singalong, and up next is the obligatory Jimmy Stewart movie. This year's Jimmy will be my favorite, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. This is funny, for Evan Almighty is basically the same movie, but with a boat. And without Jimmy.

Thirty minutes left. Mr. Smith is at the Lincoln Memorial for the first time. A young boy is reading the Gettysburg Address. I love this movie.

Fifteen minutes, and Mom is retrieving the Martinelli's. Senator Smith is about to take the oath of office.

Five. We turned off Jimmy to watch Time's Square.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Ashes Ashes We All Fall Down

Fire to the east. Fire to the north. Fire to the south. Fire to the west. In the desert, in the mountains, along the coast, at the border, and at various points in between, Southern California is burning again.

None of these blazes is terribly close to me, and for this I am grateful. However, my friend Patrick of the Mountains is right in the thick of it. Another friend nearly met with disaster on Sunday, thanks to the winds that always come with the firestorms.

I have found decent blogs reporting progress in the mountains and in San Diego. (RimOfTheWorld.net was my primary news source four years ago when The Cabin was threatened by the Old Fire.) Patrick's keeping me up on how things are going in the mountains, and textjunkie has been commenting some on the fire near Irvine.

What is truly amazing in all this is that (so far) only three deaths* have been reported in this wild week. However, a whole lot of people have been displaced.

Meanwhile, even in places that are comparatively safe, the air quality is nightmarish. Allergies and asthma are going crazy, because we're all breathing smoke, and everything is coated with a layer of ash.

*The local paper today is reporting two. The report I just read on the BBC website says three.

Grr

I'm sitting in Home Brew just about ready to scream. The Korean owner has decided that he doesn't like working with Americans. He's much more comfortable working with Koreans. Whatever. He's here so often that for two years no one knew he existed. But he's the boss, right?

A month ago he promoted Danielle to manager. She's been working here longer than he's owned the place. She trained everyone else who has worked here in the last five years. And in one month she managed to stabilize a foundering business and post a profit. This place has never been known to be profitable. Of course, it's hard to say, since the two previous Korean managers seem to have misplaced all their records.

I got here tonight to find Danielle announcing she'd been demoted again in favor of a, you guessed it, Korean guy. One who knows nothing about working in a coffee shop, by the way. She has to train him, knowing he's her replacement. Fun, fun. She quit.

But there's more. Oh, yes. The owner wants Koreans. You're not going to believe this. He's planning to let all the non-Koreans go and completely restaff the place with Koreans. He told Danielle this. Danielle is now telling the rest of the staff to look for jobs, because their days here are numbered.

He doesn't get it. He's going to lose a heap of regular customers, because there is a loyalty to this staff. I have no idea how it happened, but that's the way it is. He's going to lose a heap of customers because he's consistently making bad business choices. He's going to drive himself out of business. One can only hope.

Meanwhile, Danielle is in law school. If you think this sounds like a law suit waiting to happen, you'd be right. You can't just fire your entire staff simply because they don't look like you. If he wanted it that way, he could have done so when he bought it, or replaced people with Koreans as they quit for whatever reason, and then it would have been perfectly legal. Perhaps a little wrong still, but legal.

So I need to find a new place for free internet. I'll miss this place, but once my friends are fired for being not Korean, I can't justify spending a cent here.

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Now playing: Frank Loesser - Sit Down You're Rockin' the Boat
via FoxyTunes

Back to the Future

St. Peter's is facing an impending move. The rent is going up beyond their means, and they have to relocate. They have, therefore, compiled a list of potential new sites.

A few blocks away sits St. John's Coptic Christian Orthodox Church. They finished building their huge temple a couple years ago, but the old A-frame building that long ago housed a little Baptist church is still there. That little A-frame is on the list for St. Peter's.

That old A-frame used to house the little Baptist church that I grew up in. The little Baptist church that I watched die when I was ten.

I cannot begin to tell you how odd it would be to be there again.

Mommy, Wow!

I'm a big kid now!

We go through this every few weeks or so. She can't find a file in the computer, so she asks me why she can't find it. Except that the question sounds for all the world like an accusation. And every single time, she can't find the file she wants because she's in Word, and the file is Publisher or Excel. So instead of checking in those applications, or just opening the folder from her desktop to look for the file, she "asks" me. One time she even deleted a folder full of files because she was (surprise, surprise) in Word and the (surprise, surprise) Publisher files that were supposed to be there (and in fact were) weren't showing up. Every time, I have made myself take a deep breath and calmly suggest she check to see if her file might be hiding in another program.

Today, I had to walk away before I could do that. Today, for whatever reason, I wasn't interested in taking it. So after I was sufficiently cooled off...

I called her on it.

And it went well.

Go me!

Мир

Peace.

The Face of Evil

I have this friend who looks like Santa Claus. In fact, I might just call him Nick.

He's a good guy. He's had a rough go of it, but he's a good guy. Volunteers all over the place. Friendly.

Turn the page.

I know this other guy who looks more like a bridge troll. In fact, he kinda acts like one, too. And in recent days, the Troll informed me that he is "investigating" Saint Nick.

And really, Troll is a good name for this guy. He's just like the internet trolls who show up breathing fire looking to start trouble and destroy people. God help us if he starts breathing fire on Saint Nick. I guess we'll see the true characters of the people who know Nick if it happens. Nick is defenseless. It would take his entire community standing with him to deflect those fiery darts.

I hope they (we) do.

This Isn't Funny

Why the crap is China taking over my brain today? It owned an entire train of thought during counseling. It showed up in my earlier blog.

MAKE IT STOP!

WEDNESDAY EDIT: To continue this disturbing trend, the guy next to me at Coffee Place was reading Tuesday's paper, and there were several China related headlines, and when I talked with the Boy (who still needs a name), China kept creeping into that conversation as well. Sheesh!

Ugh

I am NOT having a good day.

Ugh

This is the Day that Doesn't End.

And I have a headache.

Ninteenth Century Treasure

It was October of 1996. I was a freshman at the local community college. My parents were in Minnesota, and I was living with my grandparents. One day, my grandfather came across some old papers.

It was about the same time that Alice and her daughter Dorothy were out for a last visit before Alice died. Alice was the last connection to these papers, for they referred to her father.

The paper was browned and brittle with age. It was rough to the touch and it smelled, well, like old paper. This is fitting, since it was dated 1889. That said, it was remarkably well-preserved. Grandpa and I looked it over as though it were a treasure.

And it was. It was a document stating that one Johann Romig boarded a ship bound for America from a specific port on a specific date. Actually, there were several Johann Romigs on that ship. Father and sons. Each son had a different middle name, you see, and one of them was Alice's father.

There was more, so much more. There was all sorts of information that neither of us could quite take hold of at first glance. It was all in German. The Johanns Romig immigrated from Germany. We had the paper that showed when and from whence they came.

So began my first translation project. I was in my first semester of German, so I knew enough to cause trouble. In other words, I knew next to nothing. Grandpa suggested I try anyway. Armed with my dictionary, my textbook, and my then-unknown crazy language skills, I managed to excavate the main thoughts.

I know little else of this Johann Romig. Eventually, he settled in Leavenworth, Kansas, where he and his wife had a good number of children, at least five of whom survived into adulthood and lived full lives themselves. Alice was the youngest of these. Lillian, born ten years after her father's Atlantic crossing, was my great-grandmother.

Oh Happy Day!

Man, it's hot today! We're talking close to 100.

My apartment has no A/C. This made for an interesting June.

A few weeks ago, the outside of the building was painted. It needed it badly, so I got over it when two days in a row I couldn't go home for lunch. No big deal.

What was a big deal, though, was the windows. The windows in my living room are the crank kind, and the hinges are outside. And newly painted. As in I couldn't open my windows in that room. Stifling!

Well, today I went home after church to make lunch, and it was already painfully HOT. Out of desperation, I tried the windows again, knowing they wouldn't budge.

They budged.

I have no idea why or how, but my windows open again! I was able to make and eat lunch without passing out. This is a very good thing.

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Yesterday, I got a call from the owner of Coffee Place. He's short staffed again. I agreed to work a few hours last night, and when I left for home, he decided to put me back on the schedule. In other words, I now have two jobs.

This is interesting to me. I don't particularly want to be working at Coffee Place on Saturday and Sunday. It means I have no day off. However, moving is expensive, and as a result, I find myself in a position where a little extra income is fairly necessary. This, then, is incredibly well-timed.

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When I arrived at church this morning, I saw a whole bunch of people that I used to see every week, but who have moved out of the area. Three different families from three different places, and they were all back visiting today. It was great! Then I saw Pastor, and it seems like my drama of last week didn't do as much damage as I had feared. (Whew!)

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So it's been a good weekend. I'm working again tonight. Free dinner, A/C, supplimentary income!

Walk a Mile

A brief note to humanity:

If you get pissed off at someone who is in a situation you have no experience with, it would be wise of you to shut the hell up and try to understand, rather than accuse and condemn based on your uninformed opinions. You are not the source of all wisdom.

Unless, of course, your goal is to shut down and alienate those around you. Then, by all means, be a prideful, self-important jackass. By all means, insist that you are right and everyone else is stupid, or worse. By all means, refuse to accept or extend forgiveness. Refuse to hear what anyone else has to say. They're wrong anyway, of course.

Just, if you make that choice, don't be too surprised to find yourself surrounded by death. You know, those relationships your pride killed.

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EDIT: I was talking with a friend Wednesday night. As she recounted a story that she has watched unfold, it reminded me of a recent difficult chapter in my own story. The emotions that followed were more intense than I was ready for. There was still a lot of anger. (You mean you couldn't tell?) Clearly, I still have work to do.

Seriously, Now

How much can a life change in the course of a month week?