Alma 34:32-33

Life is fragile. We never know when our end will come. I say this to myself more than to anyone else out there: we should not wait to be the person we want to be, the person Heavenly Father expects us to be.

I learned today that one of my former students died on Boxing Day, reportedly by his own hand. My prayers are with his family.

These were some of my boys. Aren't they gorgeous? Little punks :) One of them is now gone. One of them has lost a brother. All of them have lost a friend. Of course I feel as though I failed him in some way, even though it's been 4 years since he was my student.

Dances With Smurfs

I must thank my brilliant friend Andy for the biggest laugh of my day, which occurred when he referred to Avatar as Dances With Smurfs. I don't know if he was the originator of the quip, but it sounds like something he'd say. Love you, Andy. You rock!

Luuuuke! I am your Faaather!!!

Yesterday on the bus, Joe, a regular passenger who is an older guy in a wheelchair and who is... how shall we say... hygienically challenged, asked me if I could tuck his coat sleeve up under his butt for him. !!!!!!! Dirty old man. He would never have asked, I'm sure, if we hadn't been alone on the bus. Clearly I told him no, he'd have to manage it by himself. EW. Maybe you had to be there to get the whole creepy vibe, but I wanted to go home and take a shower after the incident. A teacher of mine used to say there are only two kinds of men - dirty old men and dead men. I don't believe that, but Joe certainly isn't a positive representative for his gender. The rest of them should get together and do something about it. He makes them look bad.

I have a head cold. I have lost my voice. I sound like Darth Vader. This pleases and amuses me. Not the cold part, but definitely the growly no voice part. The most sucky part though is that once again, I am barred from church today. They've asked us not to come if we're sick and I am visibly, audibly ill, so I have to miss the Christmas program :'( Waaahhh!! I wanted to hear the music. I haven't gotten to do any carolling this year. Although a bunch of the drivers were singing snippets over the radio the other night, the result of which was that I had 'I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas' stuck in my head for an interminable 2 days. Not the same as Silent Night by the ward choir. Sigh.

My family is beginning to gather for the holidays. My bro is coming down from Portland tonight with his adorable feline. He will stay up at my uncle's, but the kitty will stay here :) I like having a cat in the house, and Casper is a particularly fine specimen. Playful and cuddly, and oh so photogenic.

!

Christmas is a week from tomorrow!!!!! How did that happen?!?!!!

2009

There are 18 days left in the year. In the preceding 347 days I have lost my ex-husband and my cousin, watched my mother suffer with ill health and my brother struggle with his family, I have paid approximately double what my vehicle is worth in car repairs (and the check engine light is still on), I've been in a major accident (well, ok, it feels major to me), three of my coworkers have been diagnosed with cancer, one of whom is very dear to me, a pipe burst at my brother's house yesterday, I've gained what feels like 50 lbs, although it's probably more like 15, I've been single exactly 8 years this week and I haven't had a date in about that long, I've worked 275 of those 347 days and I'm tired.

Also in those 347 days I have had a job. A good paying job with benefits, which in spite of my sometimes very bad attitude, I do generally enjoy. I personally have enjoyed mostly good health and have been largely injury free. I took several fabulous trips and saw many new things. I fell in love with Paris. I've gotten to spend lots of family time. I've enjoyed my church calling. The struggles I've had this year have taught me things about myself and have put in very clear view those on whom I can truly rely. I have amazing, lovely, supportive friends for whom I am grateful.

I've seen many things in the course of my work that have warmed my heart, or at very least amused me. I suppose it's patronizing and wrong, but my passengers entertain and amuse me daily. People do the dumbest things. For example, I saw a guy riding his Harley last week wearing a leather kilt. !!! It was 20 degrees outside and he was ON A MOTORCYCLE... in a skirt. And you would not believe the conversations I overhear. People don't see me as human generally. I am an extension of the bus equipment, so the regular rules of courtesy and privacy don't apply to me. My favorite conversation that I overheard on the bus was between a woman and her male friend. She was telling him at great length the about her evil sister-in-law, using very unforgiving, violent language to describe her feelings and wishes, and then suddenly the conversation turned to religion and she was talking about forgiveness and how a person isn't supposed to hold grudges and she said, "It's like the Bible says: If you ain't got love, you ain't worth shit". I suspect that introspection was not her strong suit.

Do you think I need a new job?

Today I plowed into the back of a suburban, through 2 trees and into a fence. Thank heaven for the trees and fence because if they didn't exist I would've ended up in the living room of a very nice family, probably on top of their Christmas tree. Let me state at this point that no one was injured. This heart stopping event occurred not because I was being careless, or because of anything so rational as mechanical malfunction. It was an act of God, assisted by my boss. God provided the freezing rain that made the roads like a snot coated skating rink. My boss was responsible for the part that happened after I called him to tell him I was stuck on the hill and if I tried to move any farther I would hit something. He insisted that I continue my route, honestly not to be mean, but just because he didn't know what else to do. In hindsight, I'm sure he's wishing he'd called a tow truck when I asked him to.

Will it never end?

The answer is, no, it won't. My friend told me today she's been diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer. She seems very upbeat about it, and spent most of the conversation telling me the parts she's looking forward to. She's all kinds of excited that she gets "new boobies". Not so excited about the chemo/hair loss part, but she did tell me she got a bunch of cool scarves for her head, like tie dye and peace symbols that she knows will annoy our boss :D Today she is my hero. I don't think I could be as positive as she is being, were I in her place. And, you know, cause it's all about me... I've already lost one dear friend to breast cancer, and this has been a bitch of a year already, so Lynda, if you could just not die, that would really help me out.

:D

The most awesome thing happened today. I won't name names, because I promised I wouldn't, but I went out to lunch with someone. We both had glasses of water with straws in them. Clear glasses, clear water, clear straws, very easy to forget the straw was there. So this person picked up her glass to take a drink and the straw totally went up her nose. Like really far up her nose. It was hilarious and I will ridicule her for all eternity. The food was really good. I had an omelette with sort of curry veggies inside. And we shared a macaroon. This restaurant has the best ones in town. Very tasty, chocolate dipped and big enough to share :)

Dear Santa...

Feeling a bit better, I guess. Shen the sheep boy was back on the bus today. So cute.

I went to see my friend Gary in a play tonight - A Greater Tuna Christmas, which sounds frankly frightful but was, in fact, hilarious. Fantastic show. There are about 2 dozen characters all of whom are played by 2 actors. So, my friend Gary, who is a sizable guy, dressed up in drag and played Aunt Pearl, and Beulah, among others. He was Awesome. Laughed harder than I have in a long time, which is good. I needed that.

My uncle asked me today what I want for Christmas. Would you like to see my list?

World Peace
A bigger house
A boyfriend
A new job
To weigh less than 200 lbs
A personality transplant so that I like exercise more than TV and lettuce more than chocolate
An invisibility cloak
A million dollars
Or barring any of that, a lobotomy

I hope Santa is reading...

meh

I haven't felt much like blogging lately. Or much like being social in any capacity really. Occasionally things happen to make one lose one's faith in humanity. Little things. Hurtful things. Things that lead one to believe it's better to be a hermit, guarded and cynical than to be open to the pain of life, the pain of love. So this is me in hermit mode. I'm trying to fight it, because it's what's expected, but frankly I don't want to. If I could sequester myself away in solitude for a month, I would. As long as I could be outside. Or it would be cool to be invisible. Cause then I could still live my normal life, but I wouldn't have to talk to anyone. It's really too bad my family isn't Catholic, because then I could join a convent and take a vow of silence. That would be awesome. As it is, being a visible non-Catholic, I will continue to go to work every day and smile and make inane small talk, and do a job a chimp could do, until I can't stand it any more. If I start talking about plans for poisoning the town's water supply, or asking too many questions about automatic weapons, you might want to alert the authorities.