benefit 4,928,761,350 of being unemployed & living with your folks

it's really handy when you do something tremendously stupid to not have to worry about mundane stuff. like work. or carrying your child around. or how to feed yourself when your room is on the first floor but the kitchen is on the the second.

thursday night i was cold. i've been cold at bedtime for the last week or so, primarily because our bed is located directly below the only window in our room. that means that even though the window is completely closed, when it's say 20 degrees outside (which it has been at night for the last week or so) that even if you have the heat on in the room, there's still a cold spot right where you put your head down when it's time for bed. i don't know about you, but if ANY part of me is too hot or too cold when it's time for bed? i can't sleep.

so i decided i was going to get the nice, fluffy, warm uw huskies blanket that i got for christmas two years back down from out of the closet to put over the comforter on the bed. vrock is a furnace so i'm not allowed to have an electric blanket on the bed. that means that if i'm cold, i have to pile blankets onto my side of the bed. fine. i can do that. i pulled the office chair over to the closet, braced it against the dresser, and climbed up. there was a little wobble, but no big deal. i've done this a million times. up, grab the item in question, and down with no problems. not so much this time.

when my parents built the garage (where the 5 of us are currently living) they put an apartment over the garage and a bedroom with a bathroom downstairs. they also made 9 foot ceilings, so you HAVE to climb onto something to get anything out of the closet downstairs. ideally that something would be, i don't know, a STEP LADDER, but i digress. the basket that the blanket was in is VERY light. 2 blankets, a pair of slippers, a pair of gloves, and i think a scarf is all that is in the basket. so i knew that it would be no biggie to grab the blanket.

EXCEPT.

i didn't know that vrock had also put an armband for his ipod in the basket. this wouldn't be a big deal except that he just kind of tossed it into the basket, meaning that it landed on top of the blanket. again, not really a big deal. except. when i pulled the basket down towards me to grab the blanket out, the ipod thing fell out. and startled the shit out of me. which caused me to lose my balance and fall.

luckily i didn't bang my head on the crib or the bookshelf that is right next to it. unluckily, i heard a distinct SNAP as i landed on my foot. i was sure that once we went to the er and got x-rays that there would be a break somewhere. luckily i was wrong and it's just very badly sprained. but man. it HURTS! i spent all of friday, saturday, and most of sunday in bed with my foot propped up and icing it off and on. and today it's STILL all kinds of lovely shades of purple and yellow.

the er doc didn't give me enough pain meds to last me to my follow up tomorrow with my regular doc, so i'm raiding dad's pain meds from his surgery last month. (only after checking with the pharmacist that they're safe to take while breastfeeding.) they make me sleepy though, which is great for at night but not so much for during the day. today i finally ventured upstairs, but had to have my mom bring the baby up since i don't trust my balance enough to carry him yet.

what a great way to spend a weekend, huh? on the plus side......it's not broken. and? vrock has been pretty awesome through the whole ordeal. after 4 days of being an invalid though, i'm ready for it to heal and to be able to walk on it without pain. we'll see what the doc says tomorrow about the timeline for that.

i know this though........i'll never use a chair to get something out of the closet again!

and this? is what they call a holding pattern

so last week i went in for my 37 week appointment and was VERY excited to learn that i was already dilated to 3cm and 75% effaced. it has been MISERABLY hot here the last few weeks (today? FREAKING 100 degrees! wtf??) so i was excited by this development because as anyone who has been pregnant knows, the last month is THE WORST as far as being uncomfortable, etc. when i went in today, i was hoping for some more dilation, but figuring i wouldn't get quite that lucky since it's apparently VERY unusual to be 3 weeks prior to due date and be 3cm already. i, unfortunately was right. no further dilation OR effacement.

DAMN!

i wasn't super surprised, but i was a little bummed out. i have been EXTREMELY uncomfortable with all this heat. i'm good at 75 degrees when i'm not knocked up. i can deal with 80 as long as there is a breeze. it's been WAY hotter than that the last 2-3 weeks and it's forecast for mid 80's into the end of next week. THIS SUCKS! all that being said, i am VERY ready for little dude to make his appearance, although i'm TERRIFIED about what to do AFTER he's here. LOL i know, i know. i'll be fine once i get the hang of things. i know this. but i'm still starting to freak out a little.

so my next appointment is on monday. something had BETTER have changed (in the correct direction!) by then! LOL

in other news, we had a bit of a scare yesterday in that when we tried to go to babies 'r us in order to get the rest of the things we really NEEDED for the baby, the car wouldn't start. at all. nothing. no lights, no "door ajar" binging. nothing. thank God we have AAA. turns out it was nothing more than a bad cell in our battery, so we just needed a new one. but still. i think vrock had a minor stroke thinking that we'd have to pay exorbitant amounts of money to get the car fixed. (we bought it used, and it's still under the original warranty, but it's only 3 years old.) the battery price was more than i wanted to pay, but it's done and we're back in business.

all of that rigamarole with the battery totally shot yesterday though. so today after the doc appointment, we went to babies 'r us. we didn't get EVERYTHING that was left on the registry, but we did get the things that i think we needed the most. we still have a good chunk of the money my brother & his fiancee' (the godparents) sent for the bambino, so we just moved that money into the baby's bank account until we need to buy something else for him.

since it's been so damn hot, we decided to go to one of the local casinos so vrock could people watch and i could gamble, a little. money is very tight for us these days and while i probably should have just left it in the bank, i wanted to play just a bit. so i went with $80 and hoped for the best. i'd been to that casino in june when my bestest friend in the world was here for my baby shower. i can't remember if i won, but i think i either broke even or won a little bit. (on a side note, vrock & i went to our other local casino last week to see the gallagher comedy show. we played for about 2.5 hours and came home with $50 more than we left with, which promptly went in the baby's bank account. LOL)

anyways, so today i was doing ok, and then all of a sudden i was down to my last 10 cents. (i used to play nickel slots. now? pennies all the way!) i would have had to cash out had this last spin not been a winner of some kind because that machine's minimum bet was more than a total of 10 cents. so i spun. and hit the bonus. right on! this particular game is called "great wall" and i found it last month when i was there. the bonus consists of free spins where you can accrue points & "picks". after the free spins are up, it takes you to the "picks" page where you choose from various ying-yang's and get either points or free spins. so this first bonus i won $121. WOO HOO! not bad for literally being down to your last 10 cents! i decided that i'd play until i was at 100 and that way i'd still be coming out 20 bucks ahead of where i'd started. i spun a few times and nothing. so i cashed out. i was going to leave, but decided "what the hell"? so i put my money back in and spun and hit another bonus. this time? i won 50 something in the bonus. i played for a bit and tried to get my total up to $160 which would have doubled my initial funds for the day. i didn't get there, and decided to cash out at $150.

all in all? not bad for less than 2 hours work. i won $70, so even after i subtract the $40 that i gave vrock, i still walked out $30 up. not bad, not bad at all.

tomorrow will be a stay at home day to do laundry and to see what all we have for the little dude that we'll need right away. and hopefully the walking around today helped jiggle things so that he's thinking more about coming OUT OUT OUT already! LOL

oh, and i'll be spending a fair amount of my day with my feet elevated. i'm tired of vrock teasing me about my "elephant feet". they are SO swollen it's not even funny.

seriously????

i know, i know. i haven't written about the trip yet. i will, promise.

i just need to vent about this first.

when we first got pregnant, i was worried about the normal things: my age (37) being an issue, genetic abnormalities, miscarriage, etc. things that just about every woman is concerned about until she knows that there's nothing to be concerned about.

so we opted to do some genetic testing (first trimester testing & completely non-invasive) to "guide" us in the right direction. fortunately for us, the tests came back with no worries of any abnormalities and we were able to end that particular journey there.

that was in early february. while we were on vacation, i received a call from the billing department of that particular hospital. (not the one i'm delivering at, as that one is too small to have a maternal-fetal medicine clinic that does the genetic testing.) the guy proceeded to say that i had an outstanding bill ($30) after insurance had paid and wanted to know when i would be paying it. i'm in hawaii, and have no recollection of seeing a bill for that amount, so i told him that i was on vacation, if the bill had come prior to leaving i'd have paid it and since i'll be gone for 10 days, i'll have to look into it when i get home. fine he says and i figure that will be the end of it.

so we get home. i get the mail and sort it out. bills in one pile, etc. at this point, (about 2 weeks ago) i'm still not receiving my unemployment yet. vrock is working (huzzah!) but it's only part time. so while we do have some money floating around, there's not a lot that's leftover for extra bills. i put the bills on the desk in their spot and turn to other things.

i get a phone call a few days later from this guy again. telling me again that i still owe $30. now, i'm 27+ weeks at this point and my memory has become more faulty than i'd like to admit (HELLO list writing!), so i inform him that i have NOT received this bill and that i don't care that his system tells me they mailed it, i don't have it and therefore it will be hard for me to pay it. he says they'll send it again. fine. (of course, a day or so later as i'm preparing to pay bills i find it. but it's for $45.08 and NOT $30, so it's not completely my fault.)

meanwhile, vrock's job has become FULL TIME & BENEFITTED (woo hoo!!) and now i can pay the bills knowing that there will be more money coming in. great! so last week i write a check for this particular account and a few other non-monthly bills (we're STILL paying medical bills from his sinus surgery in oct) so that i can mail them in. i check our bank account online about every other day, so i'm glad to see that the check for this particular account has cleared. YAY! no more phone calls from this guy. right? WRONG!!!

this morning i'm sleeping in. (with vrock working full time now, the alarm goes off at about 6:45 and he gets up about 7:20. this wouldn't be an issue, except that 1) the alarm is on MY side of the bed, which means i'm the one hitting snooze and then rolling over to make sure he's awake, 2) i've done this every morning this week because i'm afraid if i don't sort of wake up with him that he'll fall back asleep and be late for work, and 3) last night/this morning i stayed up until 4:30am finishing a book because i'd had a 2 hour nap yesterday.) my phone is almost always on vibrate overnight, but because i'd grabbed it and put it by the bed this morning when vrock left for work, i hear it buzzing.

normally, i don't answer if there's no number listed. this one pops up as "private call". now, i know it's not my mom, because she left earlier and her cell number shows up on my phone. the only other "private call" that i know of for sure is my almost 38-weeks pregnant friend who lives about 8 minutes away. i'm her emergency ride to the hospital and since yesterday she was dilated to 1cm, it could be her. so i answer. it's the guy about the bill. he starts his spiel and i'm already PISSED because i KNOW that the check has cleared. i'm civil, barely, as he spits out the info about the visit date and the amount owed. and then i inform him that not only did i ONLY get the one statement (when they were supposed to send me a 2nd since i didn't recall getting a first) but that i've PAID it and IT'S CLEARED THE BANK! (there are few things that irritate me more than someone who doesn't have all the facts getting ready to "tell me off".) he then asks me to FAX him proof of payment.

um FUCKING HELLO??? just how am i supposed to do that? 1) i paid by check you asshole. i'll be DAMNED if i'm going to go to the bank and ask for a copy of the cancelled check because you can't be bothered to CHECK YOUR FUCKING SYSTEM to see if the payment has applied. (the check CLEARED on 5/22. i know monday was a holiday and all but seriously? it should be in your system by now!) 2) i don't have ready access to a fax machine and all i'd have to fax you is a copy of the statement. so i'm PISSED now. i explain to him that it's paid, cleared the bank, etc. he can tell i'm pissed because he then says "i'll just note your account paid then."

good idea asshole. of course, now i'm awake, so that annoys me even more. oh well.

i suppose i wouldn't be so mad about it if i wasn't already irritated from yesterday when the cop pulled me over.

more on that later.

i have no words

ok, that's so not true.

i have MANY words. most of them heated/angry/incredulous, in fact.

i read a story this morning about the "octuplet mom" in california. you know the one. the one who already had SIX (count them, SIX) children UNDER THE AGE OF SEVEN when she got pregnant. the one who is an unmarried, "full time student" that expects (at least from what i've read) her parents to shoulder the burden. the one who DESPITE the 6 kids, unmarried status, non job working PROCEEDED to not only use fertility drugs (yes, i'm assuming that fertility drugs were used because 8 babies does not happen naturally unless you're a cat!), but chose not to selectively reduce when it was discovered that there were SEVEN fetuses. (the 8th wasn't found until she was in the delivery room.) and the one who EXPECTS someone to PAY her TWO MILLION dollars to share her "story" and "parenting expertise".

these are the first words i had when reading that little tidbit:

WHAT

THE

FUCK??

now, i'm all for people having babies. i completely understand the draw & desire to have children. and i understand that for some, fertility drugs are the ONLY way that the dream of children can become a reality.

BUT.

for a woman who ALREADY has six kids? fertility drugs/egg stimulation/etc should NOT have been an option. AT ALL. i could ALMOST understand it if she had ONE prior child, maybe two and had turned to fertility treatments to conceive THOSE kids due to problems in previous pregnancies. (a la John & Kate Gosselin who'd had twins, wanted one more & ended up with 6 more.) not only do i believe that the doctors who assisted her in this folly should come up before some type of review board, i think that the state/federal governments should REFUSE to assist this woman with any type of money. (i know that sounds harsh, as the babies themselves did NOTHING wrong and shouldn't be punished for the stupidity of their mother. but still.)

i'm just floored at the things that continue to come out about this story. such as the woman's parents have hinted that their daughter may have some sort of mental illness. um, HELLO?!?!?!? did NO ONE think that after 6 kids MAYBE she should have been "fixed"??

nothing about this "spectacle" is easy or in black & white. there are 14 fatherless kids to think about. 8 of whom are still in the hospital fighting to get off of machines. the children are not at fault. i have MANY ideas as to what should happen to the mother in all of this. none of those ideas have a good outcome for the children however. it just makes me immensely sad that in today's world where there are so many people who struggle to have one baby, there are women like this that feel no compunction at all to have children that they are ill prepared to care for.

and the worse part? it's sounding more & more like this woman PURPOSEFULLY got pregnant with these babies to capitalize on the publics fascination with multiples. unless i'm TOTALLY misreading the stories, she PLANNED to sell her story and wanted to try to get a reality show/sponsors/etc.

i understand wanting the american dream. but at the expense of your own children? shame on you lady.

you've GOT to be fucking kidding me!

so i'm sitting here with vrock watching tv. (well, he's sort of watching it and i'm just listening since i'm still glued to my new laptop.)

and i hear: "shop rite refuses to decorate a three year old's birthday cake..."

wtf?

so i disengage myself from the computer screen long enough to watch the story.

the REASON they won't decorate the cake? the kid's name is ADOLF HITLER. his stupid stupid white supremecist parents named him that. and they WONDER why the store has an issue decorating the cake with that name?

SERIOUSLY? i mean i know that celebrities want to name their kids "unique" (and often downright stupid names like apple, zuma, etc.) but ADOLF HITLER? you have GOT to be shitting me! then vrock tells me the ultimate capper.......

they named this poor childs siblings with middle names of "aryan nation" and "heinrich himmler".

seriously. some people should be sterilized at birth.

shoe droppage

and the other shoe has dropped. i was told "unofficially" that i will be receiving notice that my job is being eliminated.

so.

it's on with the temp agency sign ups and interviews.

joy.

another tomorrow

until i have news about my status with my company.

grrrr. i hate it when hr reschedules things that are vital to my status with the company!

how do you spell relief?

i spell it:

i-n-s-u-r-a-n-c-e

we had yet ANOTHER snafu with insurance coverage on wednesday after vrock's surgery.

quick back story:

when vrock went in for his doctors visit on 9/30 he was given an Rx for antibiotics. when he got to the pharmacy they told him that we didn't have coverage. excuse the hell out of me?!?!? after MULTIPLE phone calls, i got it fixed and i picked up his prescription the next day. (the pharmacy didn't have what he needed but it was coming in the next day's shipment.)

fast forward to wednesday. after being at the hospital from 8:30am to 2pm, we were both ready to go home. we made 3 stops: one at the pharmacy across the street for a specific nasal wash not carried at our normal pharmacy, one at my parents to drop something off and the third at our local pharmacy to pick up all of our prescriptions. he's still kind of loopy from the anesthesia so he stayed in the car. 40 (count them!) minutes and $85 later i FINALLY came out with our prescriptions.

seems that SOMEHOW there was an error in reporting and we were shown as having our coverage EXPIRE on 10/11. EXCUSE me? needless to say i was PISSED off. after multiple phone calls (pharmacy called, i called) to multiple places (prescription coverage, hr, etc.) i decided to just pay the $85 (no insurance rate) and take my man home to rest. i was PISSED though and made a few MORE calls yesterday when i got back to work. nobody can give me a satisfactory answer as to WHAT the hell happened, but it appears to be fixed for the moment.

all i know is that i better NOT have to go through this every 2 weeks. see, my hr updates the insurance company who in turn updates the prescription people every 2 weeks. and if i have to do this every time we need a damn prescription, heads are going to roll. that is just BAD customer service right there.

since it was finally fixed and it had been less than 7 days since the pharmacy had run the prescriptions through the system, i called and had them rerun them so i could get credited the difference. which means that we get almost $40 back after all is said and done.

too bad i have to do some grocery shopping this weekend. i'd much rather use that $40 to soothe my stress with either thai or chinese for dinner.

and the hits just keep on coming

how do you know if you're passing the tests that God gives you?

is it if you DON'T break down and cry (& scream & throw things) that you know you're going to be ok?

because i REALLY think i'm being tested.

and i don't know if i studied hard enough.

so NOT the way to get me to do something

have you ever had one of those "friends"? maybe someone you knew casually or someone that you worked with but didn't socialize with outside of work?

i have one of those. someone that i USED to work with. someone who i was friendly enough with while we were working together, but not someone i'd consider a "friend" friend, if you know what i mean. i've never seen her outside of the work environment. we don't talk on the phone. we don't meet for lunch. she's an acquaintance. i don't dislike her by any means. we just don't hang out.

she's moving to las vegas next month. she had twins about a year - year and a half ago, on her own. she gets season tickets to the seattle mariners every year and usually when i hear from her it's as part of a mass mailing trying to sell tickets that she can't use.

so i got an email from her (not just to me, mind you) stating that she needed some help with her garage sale this weekend and with another one she has planned for 10/11 - 10/12 for anything she doesn't want to take that's left over after she packs up the moving van. i'm still unpacking from our move and my weekends have become my refuge. MY time. yes, it's time i share with vrock. he IS my husband after all. (and with him starting his new job this week, i've barely seen him as he's going in as i'm getting home and i go to bed right after he gets home.) i very occassionally will do something with a friend on the weekend. this saturday vrock will be going over to his brother's to watch the texas football game & then coming home sometime on sunday (i think before the cowboy game). which means i essentially have saturday to myself.

in theory i could go and help out at the garage sale. and i MIGHT have done just that. (another gal that we worked with, who i ADORE and who actually traveled down to vegas from seattle for my wedding, is going to go help out and i haven't seen her since june.)

except for this: "So, I beg…If you are my friend, can you please help on one of these days?"

if you are my friend? what?!?! i barely know this woman. it's not like we became real friends from working together and hang out all the time. or EVER! it just really rubbed me the wrong way. could i go and help her out? yeah, i probably could, even though i've been making a concerted effort to not drive around too much. (my car was doing some weird things a little while back and while it hasn't happened in about 1000 miles, i don't like to drive it very far.) one, gas is still expensive. two, she lives about 25 miles away. that roundtrip would take at least 1/4 tank of gas. three, even though vrock is working it's not a lot of money per hour and he won't get paid until next week for this week so money is really tight right now.

and of course, there's always the fourth reason: i don't like to be "guilted" into doing something. it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. and seriously. the only people who i let get away with that are my mother, vrock (although he wisely doesn't try it often) and a few choice friends. real friends.

you know, the kind you'd go to jail for.

seriously?!?!?!?!?

beware. rant ahead!

ok. i know that people magazine is an "entertainment" rag. i know that the majority of the stories they cover relate in some way, shape or form to the celebrity industry.

but.

a COVER story of clay aiken outing himself??

not only is it NOT news that he prefers men but there is ABSOLUTELY no reason for it to be the COVER story. i suppose "technically" it's a story because he's never admitted it before. fine. then have a little blurb in the magazine with the details. fine.

but a cover? seriously?

i guess there was absolutely NO other newsworthy stories out of hollyweird last week.

*i could care less if he's gay/straight/crooked/green/purple/whatever. i believe that whatever preference someone has is their own business & it's not for me to judge. i'm just incredulous that not only was this deemed a "big" story but that it was deemed important enough to put on the cover. aren't there other more important things going on in the world right now???

my ipod's in love with huey lewis

my office is notoriously quiet. so much so, that the other assistant and i are always asking each other if the sound from our ipod docks is too loud. because it is difficult for me to function in dead quiet i always have my ipod with me at work and running, typically on shuffle. among the first things i do when i get in every morning is to plug the ipod into the speaker docking thing i have at my desk.

friday was no different. i got in. plugged the ipod in and settled down to listen to whatever random song out of the 7,826 that are on there that ipod chose for me that moment. i then went on with my morning routine and was going along on auto pilot. after a while, i realize there is no music playing. wtf? i look over at the docking station and the screen on my ipod is still lit up with "now playing" and all the song info. the counter at the bottom though? the one that shows how much time has elapsed on the song and how much is left? is stuck at "0:00". it's not moving. there's no sound. hmmmm.

so i take the ipod off the docking station and try to turn it off. nothing. ok. i hold it up to my ear and can hear it humming. it is also CLICKING. that doesn't sound good. i can't afford a new ipod, so i'm freaking out that this one is broken. (it's a 4th generation ipod classic. a 40gb one that apple doesn't even MAKE anymore. i bought it used on ebay back in 2005 and i LOVE it.) it won't do anything. won't turn off. won't put out any sound. so i let it sit for a bit. finally, in response to all my frantic button pushing it turns off. i let it sit for an hour or so. reset it and try it out again. same thing. no sound. clicking & humming. won't turn off. SHIT!

by this time, i'm looking up online how much a new one is ($225-$250). trying to figure out if we can afford a new one (we can't.) or if i can figure something out to tide me over until christmas, where hopefully i can get my parents/vrock/my brother to go in on a new one for me. (that's a possibility.) in a fit of inspiration i remember that before i got the docking station so that i could use my ipod at work, i had used launchcast radio from yahoo to listen to music at work. so at least i'm covered for the day and am not sitting in complete silence. (i'm extremely spoiled by tivo and satellite/internet radio/ipod listening in that i HATE to listen to/watch commercials anymore.) i get home friday and reset it again. it still won't play. so i plug it into itunes and restore it (which wipes everything off of it). then i try to re-install my entire music library. i had a dear friend over friday night and so i just plugged it in and let it sit.

by saturday morning, itunes said that the ipod had been re-synced. i took it off the docking station and it had 200+ songs on it. um, hello? that's a far cry from the 7,826 songs that SHOULD be on there if, in fact, it had completely re-synced. well crap. but, at least now it's actually playing. i tried a few more times to reload the songs, but it just wasn't working. we were going to the mall anyway later that afternoon, so i took it with us so that i could take it to the apple store and see if they could tell me what was wrong with it. (of course by now it's actually playing just fine. figures.) so after much waiting around, they run some diagnostics on it and can't really find anything wrong with it. it's not clicking anymore (which some suggested sounded like a hard drive in the beginning throes of dying) and it seems to be playing the music just fine.

they told me that i'd done all the correct things and to keep an eye on it. we got home and i was able to reload all of my music onto it and it would still play. yay!

the big test was today when i got to work. (i don't listen to it on the bus, so i don't carry my earphones with it.) i plugged it in, put it on shuffle and held my breath. and? other than a love affair with huey lewis & the news (there are only 21 songs out of 7,826 on there and i've heard at least 3-4 of them in the last 4+ hours!!) it seems to be working just fine. whew!

keep your fingers crossed, k?

i guess i looked like a heathen

something odd happened to me the other day that i've been meaning to write about but haven't gotten around to it until today.

i take the bus to work since my work will pay for my pass and since gas was so outrageously expensive when i started a few months ago. which means that every morning i either drive or my husband drops me off at the park and ride that is about 10 minutes from our apartment. part of why i like riding the bus is that it means i get to read on the way to and from work. (which means i don't have to find time to read after i get home.) it also means that i have at least 45 minutes extra in the morning to wake up fully by the time i get to work. i also don't have to pay attention to anything or anybody else on the road. all in all, a win-win situation for me. (i am NOT a morning person, so having this extra time to wake up is great for me.)

that being said, i usually don't talk much to people at the bus stop or once i'm on the bus past "good morning". so the other day i'm standing there waiting for the bus. i'm half asleep, as usual. as i'm standing there yawning and generally trying to wake up, a woman walks up. she says good morning, so i say good morning, fully intending to leave it at that. then she launches into her spiel about what do i think God's plan is for the government, etc. WTF? it's barely 7:15 in the morning, i'm half asleep and you're asking me about God at the bus stop of the park & ride? i tend to do my best to not be rude to people, even if i DESPERATELY want to be rude to them. i mean, come on. i was raised that you don't talk politics OR religion in polite company. EVER. and this stranger wants to talk BOTH before i'm even awake? um, NO.

(let me say this: i believe in God. i'm just not one of those people that will start a conversation with a total stranger and start espousing the wonders of what God has done for me in my life. it's just not who i am or what i do. does that make me a bad person? does it make others doubt my belief? i don't think so. and i think that the people who DO think that may not be the brightest crayons in the box. i have a relationship with God that i don't ever feel the need to justify/define for other peoples satisfaction.)

i was polite. we chatted a bit. i told her i'd grown up catholic. that while i didn't read the bible as often as i probably should, i generally enjoyed it when i did. she wanted to give me some pamphlets which i politely declined. mercifully my bus showed up then and i had to go. as i got on the bus i looked out the window. i was wondering if she was going to accost someone else and get their take on who should run "God's government". and? apparently i was the ONLY heathen at the bus stop that morning, because she was walking back towards the parking lot to her car. wtf??