This Blog

For the last month or two a company where I worked for 5 years paid me to read blogs. No, no one came to me and said we need you to review these blogs; I had nothing else to do. I received an email one day about a JC Penny catalog, found out it was from a blog. I started clicking on blogs he read, then blogs she read, and so on. I was laid off from that job. I knew it was coming since I would tell my boss I had nothing to do, she would shrug and walk off, this is not a good sign when the year before my budget has been over 50 million dollars. I took her shrug as an affirmation that I could read blogs so I did.
Now I am starting my own blog. Hopefully it will not be about the unemployed life for long. I am waiting to hear about a job where I know it is between me and one other person. I have not had this much time on my hands since, well maybe ever. The house is clean and there are no dirty socks. I ironed the duvet cover last week. I have been unemployed for ten days.
I do not have a mission statement for this blog and am just as curious to see where it goes as anyone who stumbles upon it.

My boy

What was she thinking?

I went to pick up my dinner at my favorite Thai place. When I walked in there was singing, the table closest to the font of the restaurant was singing. What made this strange and funny at the same time was not so much the singing but the fact that the people at this table obviously did not want to sing. There were about ten people at this table. The woman at the head of the table was standing and had one of those sack things to put your baby in hanging in the front and yes there was a baby in it. I could not tell due to the lack of enthusiasm if this woman and simply written the words to “Sweet Caroline” down for everyone to use or she had redone the words for what ever occasion they had gathered for. Now the woman standing was singing and the other nine we mumbling I turned around to look and hopefully get a better idea of what was going on but I started laughing and that is really rude when you are looking at the people you are laughing at, so I turned away and kept laughing. I almost decided to eat my food there just so I could get a better idea of what was going on. When I got in my car I thought if I had gathered ten of my friends together at an alcohol free place to celebrate ANYTHING I would know better than to pass around song lyrics and demand they sing along, because my friends would not do that. It made me wonder then, were these not people that this woman knew well? Does she just have expectations of her friends that are totally unrealistic? Is this the crazy friend of the group that got to organize this time and they just decide to mumble through? So many questions that I will never have the answer to. At least I have an odd story to tell.

Monday Fun Day

My best friend and I have had many “Fun Day Sundays” as we call them. Since I am unemployed and she has Mondays off, we chose to have a Monday Fun Day. We were going to try a place where neither of us had eaten before, an airstream trailer that serves crepes, they were closed. So we went to a favorite that we do not indulge in often. If you have never had a fried avocado, find one now and put it in a tortilla with cheese, so yummy. Then she agreed to go along on my errands which really turned into window shopping.
We went into this beautiful furniture store to browse and this nice man treated my as if I was about to buy everything in the store which was nice, but again I am unemployed. I was also simply confused by what would give him the impression that I had unlimited funds, but I silently thanked him for treating me as such.
We walked by a new restaurant that while we have no idea what the cuisine is just by how amazing the architecture is alone we can’t wait to eat there.
I bought a yoga blanket and took her to Anthropologie which I was surprised to find was a place she had never been. They had a million wonderful things. I was shocked when I picked up this bird and saw that is was $29.99. I rarely buy trinkets but fell in love. The nice man rang me up and told me, “That will be $322.00.” Um what? I had to explain that I had read the tag wrong. In my defense the tag had been torn, I do know how to read numbers.
We continued to have a wonderful day until I had to take her to work, on her day off, which is another story. I did get to run into her store and get a Topo Chico which I had been craving for 24 hours.One of my favorite moments was when I noted that I felt people had been glancing at us all day, in a good way. We had to giggle since we are both jeans and t-shirt kind of gals. We had both dressed for the day without conferring, we felt very put together, which of course made us laugh.

Strep Throat

I have finally gotten out of bed and put on real cloths after three days with strep throat. I have decided it is the worst thing to have that does not put you in the hospital. My body was so depleted of energy that I had 200 pages left of the 4th book in the Twilight series left and I could not finish it, because it was too heavy for my sick arms to hold. Then I tried to lie on my stomach with a pillow propped under my chin and the book lying on another pillow so I did not have to hold it. My throat was so sore that it hurt to be touched from the outside and so the whole pillow under the chin thing was torture. So I watched a lot of TV. I have the sheets in the washer and I have disinfected the bedroom, a is door open to the balcony so that fresh air can replace the germy air. Now I am off to get some Thai soup to begin replacing all the nutrients I have lost due to not being able to swallow any food since this sickness took possession of my body.

The first time I got strep throat I was in kindergarten. My mom had just been given her reel to reel movies of when she was growing up. She set it up to watch on her bedroom wall. As the light flickered on the wall and the back and white image came to life I turned to her and asked when she took these of me? She responded, “This is me!” Yes we look very much alike. I still remember watching them as my body became made of lead and my throat became a pit of fire. I missed my last day of kindergarten because of strep throat.

This time I was sitting outside at a bar drinking whiskey on the rocks. I had a blanket wrapped around my shoulders wondering why I was the only one that was cold. Then my body became heavy and my throat began to burn.

Josh Radin

I saw Josh Radin last night and once again he did not disappoint. His music is wonderful, he is adorable, and everyone respected we were there to hear his music. Opening for him was Meiko. I have her album and have enjoyed it, but seeing her live was a real treat. She is adorable and I could see she can be naughty in that way you want a true friend to be. She is a tiny woman who has a voice that is bigger than one would expect. I enjoyed the entire evening with a very good friend. We were planning on just buying tickets at the door and were sad when we got to the front of the line and saw the sign that it was sold out. A man heard our distress and held out two tickets saying they needed a third. They had not been able to get the third and would love for us to have the two. I pulled out my wallet to pay and he walked away saying he did not want our money, just please enjoy. We were blessed with the random kindness of strangers.

Listening In

I used to work with a woman that shared a hobby of mine, listening to other people’s conversations at restaurants. When we were out together we would split up the restaurant and then share what we had heard after dinner. If we could not hear them we would guess what they were talking about by their body language. I actually always enjoyed the ones we made up over what we actually heard.
I used to wait tables. It was Valentines which is the absolute worst night to wait tables. I had this one couple and the man had me put a ring in her dessert. I noticed that she already had a wedding ring but this one was larger, I assumed an upgrade. I served the desserts and when the woman saw the ring her eyes got big and I got ready for the squeal of excitement. Instead what came out of her mouth was the voice of incredulous disgust. I of course quickly walked away. From what I could tell they were having financial problems and while he thought he was doing something kind she saw it as foolish and on par for his idiocy. I felt sorry for the guy.

Today at the coffee shop

A man just walked into the coffee shop where I am sitting. He looks British, we are in Texas. He has on a pea coat and just tied his Lab to a chair outside. The Lab looks as though he barks with an accent. The man has on a tie, ripped jeans, and canvas sneakers. I can’t hear him order because the music is loud. His brown hair has a slight curl and is short. He sits outside staring, his face looking as though it wants to cry. He is on his way with coffee to go and a small brown bag. I wish I could have heard his dog bark.