I don’t write here very often anymore (that makes it sound like I write somewhere else, which is not the case). This makes me sad, because there’s a reason why I started this site however many years ago. Not only do I love having a journal to look back on as sort of a record of the mundane things I do and the stupid things I worry about, but I also really simply like writing. It helps me sort out what’s important, it helps me notice what’s going on in the world around me, it helps me avoid letting just another Tuesday turn into a day of nothing special. For some reason writing sort of helps me discover little bits of special in those days (please pretend that is not the most horribly corny thing you’ve ever seen in writing). I think its because it honestly forces me to look at life in a totally different way, almost by taking a step back from the constant go-go-go and meditating on it all for a bit. Without some sort of “time-out” for reflection, it’s so easy for life to turn into just one long string of forgettable, insignificant moments. I certainly don’t want to let that happen.
Like yesterday, it was pretty darn ordinary, which is ok, because I like my ordinary, and I’m quite thankful for my ordinary. But there was a lot of good stuff mixed in with the ordinary that doesn’t deserve to be immediately filed away.
I had to get out of the office at lunchtime, because holy crap my job can turn my brain into mush some days, so I went across the street to this great health food place that has the best sandwiches and home-made soups. I haven’t been there since the crabby snarly lady who makes no attempt to hide the fact that she simply hates her job and you, her customer, for making her do it, put mayo on my turkey wrap when I most distinctly requested that she not. I remember that day because I was super stressed at work, and when I got back to my office and saw the massive amount of white junk all over my lunch, I almost started crying. And when I attempted to scrape it off with napkins I had to choke back vomit as I gagged uncontrollably. I ate two bites and threw it away. I really hate mayo. The point of all this is that that specific horrible incident had put me off from H&H café for months, and yesterday I decided to brave the place again after going over and over in my head as to how and when I would say “no mayo” this time. My hope was to greatly minimize the probability that she would forget my special request again this time, and thereby minimize the probability that I would be crying and gagging back in my office 5 minutes later. Anyway, the point of all this is that crabby snarly sandwich lady is gone. I didn’t ask why, but she no longer works there. It was a surprising twist to be sure, she’s been working there for as long as I’ve been eating there, and I’ve been eating there as long as I’ve been working at my job. Four and a half years. Holy crap, I’ve almost been at my job for five years, how is that possible? Ok, let’s not get off topic. Unfortunately I believe that lady may have been holding the place together, because that joint was literally pure chaos yesterday. It seriously was 20 minutes before I had my sandwich, and there were only two people waiting in line at the counter when I walked in. The two ladies working were running all over the place, they had forgotten to order this, ran out of that by 10:30 AM. I left the place very stressed out and just drove to a nearby park with a pond to eat my sandwich in my car. I had planned on eating in, reading a bit, but I just couldn’t be in that madhouse anymore.
As I was eating my lunch in my car, listening to the radio, I noticed that there were all these beautiful geese sitting on the ice in the parking lot, hanging out and looking very cold. Aren’t geese supposed to fly south for the winter, what are they doing here? In the warmer months they are always running all over the place at that park, those geese are one of the reasons why I sometimes go there to eat my lunch, (the other is to absorb some happiness-inducing rays of sunlight which I have to go without throughout most of my work day), but it made me sad to see them all huddled together in the cold and the snow. I started having irrational thoughts about making a run to target to buy blankets and loaves of bread for the poor things. Anyways, maybe I’m crazy, and this is normal goose behavior. I am certainly not an expert. They just really did not look happy. They were not frolicking like they were in September.
