“If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.” -C.S. Lewis

My mouth = gaping, my bottom lip = on the floor for the entire thing. Worth a watch!

Via Tumblr, yet to discover the author:

“I am not a graceful person. I am not a Sunday morning or a Friday sunset. I am a Tuesday 2am, I am gunshots muffled by a few city blocks, I am a broken window during winter. My bones crack on a nightly basis. I fall from elegance with a dull thud, and I apologise for my awkward sadness. I sometimes believe that I do not belong around people, that I belong to all the leap days that never happened. The way darkness and light mix under my skin has become a storm. You don’t see the lightening, but you hear the echoes.”

In the spirit of getting through the day without clawing my eyes I’ve decided it’s time to release a little stress out into the blog-o-sphere. I’m going to start documenting (read that: tattling on) the sometimes bizarre, often unexplainable behavior I see from day to day. When it happens I’m always left in an exaggerated state of “WTF?!”, standing there gaping and shuffling, staring at my wide-eyed husband who’s usually looking back at me like any moment the hidden camera is going to be revealed. The problem is I don’t have a place to store the emotional fallout a steady diet of “WTF?!” produces, so I’m gonna store it right here, right out in public. Kinda like that aunt everyone has but noone likes to mention, who line dries her big ‘ole white granny panties out on the balcony for everyone in the neighborhood to enjoy.

When possible I will provide photos, with the faces, places and specifics blurred to protect the stupid innocent.

People behaving strangely – Episode 1 – The Diva

In this episode I’m in a grocery store cereal aisle with two of my children. My son is on foot and my youngest daughter is perched in the large shopping cart I’m pushing. It’s a narrow little aisle with a concrete pillar staggered halfway, a small wall of cereal on one side and rice and dry beans on the other. I’ve been there about two minutes, parked in front of the cereal quite close to the shelf, when an attractive young blonde woman rounds the corner. She parks herself an arm’s length away from the dried beans, about a foot away from the end of my cart. This successfully blocks the entire walkway.

She stands there staring, seemingly completely absorbed in the rice, first picking up one bag and then another, reading the ingredients. At this point I’m wondering what could be so transfixing about the back of a bag of rice but apparently I need to start checking them out because this chick looks like she could burn a hole through the package with her eyes.

She’d been at this for about five minutes when a female employee carrying a heavy box of cans walked up and stood at her shoulder, smiling and waiting for her to notice and make room to pass. I noticed all this out of the corner of my eye and saw my position was such that I couldn’t make room without a big move. The only variable who could move with ease was the young woman, so I turned back to the cereal confident the situation would take care of itself.

After a bit I noticed the store employee still standing there quietly. She stood there, shuffled a bit and stood there… cleared her throat a little and stood there… and stood there… and stood there. By this time I noticed the muscles in her shoulders and forearms start to droop from the weight of the box. She then made another noise, bent forward from the waist and tried to peer around into the young woman’s face and get her attention, but was ignored.

The entire time this is happening and as it’s beginning to grow uncomfortable I’m thinking to myself “she’ll move… any moment she’ll move”, but she never did. She knew the woman was waiting to get around her so she could do her job, and she deliberately went on standing there stock still in the middle of the aisle, picking up every bag of rice in front of her slowly and carefully and reading the packages.

Finally I couldn’t stand it any longer, gathered my children closer to me, manuevered my cart around and backed all four of us up the length of two carts so the employee could make a wide path around the woman, which she thanked me for and did. The young woman never looked up but right after the employee was past her she abruptly turned on her heel and left.

???

You never know what you’ll find just around the corner.

I’m beginning to miss writing, especially writing when I don’t really have anything to say. In the past I’ve enjoyed going back and reliving those small, seemingly unimportant moments that make up a life. Even though I didn’t realize it at the time those were often the best parts. Lately too many of those times have been passing by without being documented and I fear one day I’m going to regret it.

So… Spring. It isn’t here yet, won’t arrive until the 20th, but you’d never know from the rejoicing going on outside my windows every morning. The little feathered fellas are anticipating the return of the sun with vigor. I love to hear them sing. You can’t help but be happy in the face of all that utter joy.

In other news I finally broke down and joined the “Chucks” crowd despite decades of resistance. After seeing young and old alike wearing them I decided to find out why. Result: Comfort! They’re like house shoes with tennis shoe soles. I decided to get a pair but in as respectable a color as I could manage, like black or white or gray. Turns out shops in Germany don’t seem to order several pair of the more popular colors, so what I found in the Converse aisle was more shades than a box of Skittles. I also discovered these shoes must still be extremely popular because despite there being a great number the only pairs left in my size were Barney the Dinosaur purple, Day Glo red, and a weird dirty beige. I settled on the purple because they were the least eye searing. The beige were the Saturday night mug shot color of a serial killer’s teeth. The red were the shade you see guiding planes in on foggy nights, so… yeah. Barney the Dinosaur purple and I’m grateful.

Truthfully though they’re beginning to grow on me. I’m also getting real good at avoiding my neighbor’s eyes on the sidewalk, which I imagine are rolling so hard they’re in danger of losing them altogether. But when have I ever been a stranger to that?

Behold, and Happy Spring! (do people say that? Happy Spring? well I do, so Happy Spring!):

Meditation for today: A jug is filled drop by drop.

The last few days have been milder and it feels like a gift. I am so ready for winter to be over.