Don't Mind Me, I'm Just Looking

An occupational hazard of being a writer is the fact that you are a people watcher.  You aren't watching to just look.  You are watching to get ideas for characters, for situations, and even places.  Us writers can creep people out with the way we just sit there and stare.  Luckily, many of us have gotten good at not making it obvious that we are observing you or the situation that you are currently involved in.

For example, there is a bank whose parking lot I sit in every morning and every afternoon for crosswalk duty.  I will often just park my truck in a specific space where I can watch for students and sit in the cab, out of the elements.  There is one particular lady that I have observed for this entire school year, mainly because of what happened in the late fall.  This particular lady broke her leg.  And it was a pretty bad break too considering the fact that she had to use a little cart to get around once she came back to work.  Here are some things that I can tell you about her simply from watching her.

1. She is a teller.  Tellers always arrive before the bankers in the morning since the bankers only have to be there when he lobby is open.
2. She is cared for by her spouse.  Since she broke her right leg, it would have been very difficult to drive so her spouse dropped her right off in front of the door every day she used the cart.
3. She is financially stable.  The car that her spouse dropped her off in was a higher end sports car.  Not the most expensive but definitely not the cheapest either.
4. She is well liked by her coworkers.  Every time she arrives the same time as a coworker, she always waits for them & will chat with them as they walk to the door.
5. Even though her leg is healed, it still gives her some trouble, especially during colder weather.  The limp that she has becomes more pronounced during the colder temps.

See?  It is interesting what you notice when you sit down and just observe :-)

Don't Speak

When you are told to do not something, it seems like it is all you want to do.  I am under doctor's orders to not talk for the next few days due to contracting laryngitis.  I don't think that I have ever had it before but so far it is rather frustrating.  My voice wasn't very strong to begin with so going to pick up the meds from the pharmacy was tough because if I did have a question, I would have had to write it out.

For the next two days, I have to rest my voice and take my meds.  The hard thing will be to not speak.  It will be interesting to see what experiences I have during this time of no speech.

Enough is Enough

I saw something today that angered me and I just needed to vent.  It frustrates me to see happy news from people who say they love & care for me in social media for the whole world to see but couldn't be bothered to text me the news, let alone call me.  I'm not asking for a call every time a happy or sad event happens, but major events would be appreciated, i.e. engagement, birth of a kid, death of a mutual family member, etc.  You ask me to call but you never return the courtesy.  It is all on me to make the effort to stay connected but yet the street goes both way.  I can't be expected to do all the work.

And keeping contact with family is work, especially if there is distance between members.  Call, text, hell even write a freaking letter!  I'm not saying that it has to happen every week but more than once a year would be nice.  Don't use the excuse either of that you are too busy.  Both of us have lives and things that we need  to do, but again I state, contact between loved ones takes effort of both parties parts, not just one.

Adventures in Friendship: Day 8

It has been a couple of days since Marie went back home and I got to thinking about how lucky I am to have a friend like her.  She won't like me bringing this up because she says it gives an idea to our age, but we have been best friends since we were eight years old.  We have definitely fought the odds with our friendship.  Our friendship survived the big move when Marie & her family moved to the other side of the country right before we started high school.  We wrote constantly, which still happens to this day, and we stayed in touch.  Our lives grew, we got jobs in the adult world, we got married and yet, we stayed in touch.  And it wasn't just a letter here, a phone call there.  There is a connection between the two of us that goes deeper than most.  We know each others past, both the good and the bad.  Yes, there has been times where we fought but the conversation has never stopped.  Marie gave me a picture frame that pretty much sums up our friendship:

"Hey girlfriend!  We may not see each other for ages but we never seem to miss a beat.  Our friendship is a never ending conversation."

So to you, my dearest friend, my sister from another mother, & my evil twin, thank you for being my friend for all these years.  Having you visit me this spring was fabulous.  I look forward to many more adventures and years of friendship. 

Until our next conversation, smooches!

View from one of the planes when

Marie went home

Adventures in Friendship: Day 7

Bowling has never been my best sport but it is one that I will willingly participate in, no matter how much I suck.  We decided to play a few games at a near by bowling.

The 1st game

The 2nd game

So, as you can see both Marie and I totally suck at bowling.  The fun stuff about bowling is the not knocking down all the pins but the silliness that can happen  during the game.

As a tradition, whenever we get together, Marie and I always have to bake cookies.  They were chocolate chip and very tasty.  As the cookies baked, Marie had me try the game Portal, which was rather fun.  The computer voice was crazy and I could be heard yelling at it a few times.

Our final adventure was to check out the 8 Bit Bar.  Totally fun!  Lee, Marie, and myself played lots of old video games.  Lee was very kind to play designated driver so I got to enjoy a strawberry cider and a pear cider.  It was a real blast from the past to see and play video games that I hadn't seen in years.

Mario art

Adventures in Friendship: Day 6

Great comedian

Starting on Thursday, my second job had an associate thing where we got a higher than normal discount while I was on vacation so I did have to swing by there to pick up a few things that I really wanted.  After that, we went searching for the famous Richard Pryor statue that is somewhere downtown.  I did find it one day but that was when I got lost coming back from the post office.  We both took pictures in front of it and pictures of it.

We did do a typical sleepover activity during Marie's visit: doing our nails.  Our nails actually matched: dark purple nail polish on every other nail with a nail wrap covered in flowers n the others.  They turned out really pretty.  When we started our nails, we watched Howl's Moving Castle.  When moved on to Monsters Inc then to Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle.

Adventures in Friendship: Day 5

So being the silly & goofy people that we are, we decided to do tie-dye one Wednesday.  We didn't dye t-shirts but four bags: a purse and three smaller bags that you could use when you go on a trip to store make-up and things. 

All our supplies

It was harder to dye the smaller bags because the fabric was was thicker and didn't absorb the dye as well as we hoped.  It was a lot of fun.  I hadn't done tie-dye in a really long time.

All ready to go

The bags themselves turned out really nice, although I did decide to dye parts of my arm in the process.  While rinsing the dye from the bags, we discovered that the purse actually had 2 smaller pockets in it.

The dye has staying power

Adventures In Friendship: Day 3 and 4

So yesterday, got to show Marie some fun little shops in my town before I had to be a responsible adult & go grocery shopping.  She had a lot of fun at all of them but she really enjoyed the store Relics.  It is a place I have gotten fun socks and lots of fun postcards.  Marie had a blast stocking up of fun cards and postcards.  During our grocery shoping trip, I will admit that I threaten to throw a chicken at her, much to the disapproval of the staff. I said it jokingly but they must not have realized that.

My new socks

Today was museum day. Got to enjoy a show at the planetarium and check out a lot of neat stuff about Illinois. There was a great photo experience where we were photographed in front of a field of pennies. The fun part was that Marie was wearing a green shirt so some of the pennies appear on it as well.

A sign I found on one of the exhibits

We both had some fun exploring some fun shops near my home as well. Once we got home, we relaxed for a bit and Marie made us a very yummy egg bake for dinner. 

Looking forward to more adventures tomorrow :-)

An Odd But Lucky Thing

I would say that one of the odd things in my purse would be a small coin that I have dubbed "the goddess coin".  I'm not sure how I got it but it has lived in my coin purse for the past few years.  Most would say that it doesn't look like a goddess, just a person who may be doing yoga.  To me, she is a little goddess.  It just feels like the right thing to call her.  She feels lucky too.

My goddess coin

*I challenged Marie with this one too.  Here is the link to read hers: https://eclecticthe.blogspot.com/2018/04/odd-change.html












Prompt 283 of 300: Describe one odd item that you have in your purse or wallet right now.)

Adventures In Friendship: Day 2

So the day started out good. I made deviled eggs and my death by chocolate pie for a late lunch/ early dinner at my mother in-law's house and had a very nice chat with Marie. We all enjoyed the food at my mother in-law's and as dinner was wrapping up, it started to snow! It's the first day of April and we get freaking snow!  I've said it before and I'll say it again. People need to stop messing with Mother Nature's meds.

Anyways, it kept snowing as we left. It got thicker when we stopped for a visit with some of Marie's family and short visit with a few of my friends. By the time we headed home, the roads were slick and rather slushy. We counted three cars in the ditch and three other cars driving without their headlights on (idiots) but we made it back to our home safe and sound.