From The Heart

It was a very sweet note from a student; thank you for all that you've done for me, etc. "I don't know what I would have done without you." And then the lines, "You are a detrimental piece to the puzzle that is my life. Thank you! I will miss you greatly."
Detrimental? I wonder, what is the etiquette, when receiving a thank you card, if there is an error of word choice? Or if perhaps she used this Hallmark card to finally air her grievances against me for @#!$ing up her Life Puzzle.

Violators Will Be Told Not to Park Here Again

Nicki, Jason and I are at a play last night (Jason came for the boobies). It's a three-hour emotional marathon. When I get out of the theater and notice three missed calls--one from my father--I start to sweat. A cell phone call from my father is an emergency notification. Or I'm in trouble. An emergency notification that I am in trouble.
As I'm speaking to him, he's got the Minneapolis police on the house phone line. They've found my car in an "unlikely" spot and they think it may have been stolen. It hasn't. I'm looking at it, and I'm looking at them with their bright lights facing me as I cross the street. They're smiling when I arrive, and they've got my photo up on the info screen. I say something like, "Who's that fox?" They point to a sign that says "no parking zone" and something about violators being towed. I point to a bigger, yellow sign that advertises this as a parking lot for the theater. A conundrum. "Miss, a lot of shady activity has occurred" in the time they've waited for me to show up. I'm parked "two blocks from the epicenter of crime in the 5th precinct." There have been "34 aggravated robberies and assaults already this month." People will "break a window for the quarters and dimes in your console. Let alone the bag* in your backseat."
Before they found me, they sent a car to do an apartment courtesy check, likely ringing the broken doorbell at my apartment. They urgently called my parents; left messages on my personal cell phone. And I think to myself, If I weren't a white girl with a car registered to a wealthy neighborhood address, would anyone even bother with all this? Probably not. They would have towed the car.
Well, I was thinking that and, How will I blog this?

*Full of church papers and a Bible. Which would have been so disappointing to a robber, unless they were searching for a free Catholic Study Bible and some discussion guides.

Our Girl

(The college grad. Be as excited for her as she is for herself. )
Pomp. Ceremony. Giant robes with nasty velvet hoods.
Carly is our family's first ASL interpreting graduate. Although unless I'm mistaken, nobody else majored in theater. Booya.

Instead of Orders, Offer Choices

Discipline must be exacted quickly to be effective. I have now established myself as the serious lady neighbor.
Last night the new neighbors--or possibly merely the Winter-Dormant neighbors are in mid-party on the patio we share. Three floors up I argue with myself about whether to say anything. Since the party isn't outside Nicki's window, she goes to sleep.
11 pm approaches. Sure, we're Uptown Girls, digging the nightlife (during the summer, when we don't have to wake up for work). We're also digging the open windows since we don't "have" air conditioning and thusly suffer the consequences of everyone else's late nights. But a Thursday? We finished college three years ago. (We are clearly still very young. (But not as young as the kid who got suspended today for "drinking carton after carton of milk until [he] vomited in the cafeteria."))
I'm not going change out of my pajamas so I passive-aggressively call out my window, "Could you keep it down?" I want to add "out there" and "please," but I can't get the words out before someone yells back, "No!"
"Super. Thanks."
Following a few "Dude, your neighbor is pissed" and "she didn't say please" snarks, the party breaks up. No fists thrown; no police or landlords called. An empty victory. So next time I'll try the aggressive-aggressive approach.

Someone Once Said

"I used to think Jim was short for Jimothy."
"It's got sequins but they're square sequins so it's not, like, trashy."

After three years of Monday night meetings, my church girls are done. They graduate from high school in two weeks and beyond that, they will go on to do wonderful, beautiful things for this world. I want to wish them luck and love and delicious college food. And to tell them that they should document it heavily. Because I won't be there to write down their quotable quotes, but I really want to hear about them when we reconvene for the holidays.
I've compiled a little checklist for success in college because I know how they love lists:

• Do your work
• Live with people who have different majors, or people who change their minds all the time
• See the art/theater/music shows
• Study abroad and eat peanut butter for homesickness
• Moderate your intake of homesickness peanut butter
• Take classes in a subject you love
• Call home as a surprise to thank your parents for helping you get this far, no matter who foots the tuition bill
  
• Play intramural sports
• Go to church or somewhere on campus that makes your heart feel full of God
  

Be good, Girls. I will miss you.

You'll Just Have To Trust Me When I Say That I Know, First-Hand

There is no good way to wear a Band-Aid on your lip.

Oh, No She Didn't

I know I'm doing a good job relating to my students when I hear myself say things like:
"If you can rise above the drama and 'She's a trifling b,' you will finish your education, as you came here to do, and become an intelligent, strong, successful woman."

Using the Free Address Labels from Amnesty International

I always feel a little guilty, but it's so fast! And stickers! With my name!
Bill payment is such a pain. The stamps, the envelopes, the check-writing. We should be able to do that grocery-store thumbprint account authorization everywhere. For everything. "Oh, hello Barkeep, I'd like a pint of Blue Moon. And a little tip for you, too." Then I thumbprint his hand and BOOM. He's got my 5.00. "This city is getting too pricey for me, Barkeep. I think I'll be movin' on. First I'll have to buy a car with better gas mileage because movin' on is getting expensive, too."
But I guess that kind of payment would still involve a trip to the bank to touch their thumbprint machine. You know what? Nevermind. Let's eat cookies.

Lilacs, Medical Waste

What a welcome.
I am home again where every verdant thing blooms; the calming wind blows through my curtains; my insurance company mistakes me for my sister and charges me for both of our doctor visits...
Springtime and buttercups. An insurance claim without error is like a sleep without dreams: missing something interesting. All is right with the world.

An Approximate Charting of Our Time Spent in the UAE