Choosing Your Vowel

It sounds odd, I know, but I read about it in another blog, www.spousebuzz.com.

Choose your vowel: Bitter or Better?

This was my day: Squirt woke up around 8:45 this morning, which is perfectly fine. So we get up, I make her breakfast, and we're just relaxing and getting into the waking up bit.

I ask my grandmother if she'll take me to work. She says, "No. Find your own way." (Back story: Yesterday she and I had a bit of a fight. I caught an attitude with her, she resorted to name calling. I went to apologize, she walked away and slammed a door. I gave up.)

So I pull up the schedules of the FredBus and start looking through it to get to work. I dress and leave the house at 915 to walk to the stop at Taskforce Dr, except there's no sign. So I call the Fred headquarters, and the guy that answers tells me there is a stop there, and he'll let the driver know that someone will be waiting. Bus never comes. So I walk the rest of the way to the mall (note: my house to the mall via Taskforce Dr = roughly 1.5 miles). I call headquarters again, and am told that the stop is in front of the mall. So I wait. The bus comes, the bus drives right by.

Ok.

Turns out, the stop is not in front of the mall, but off to the side in front of Guitar Center. So I wait another hour. And call work to tell them I'll be late.

I got to work 30 minutes late. On the plus side: I wasn't in trouble, since I called and explained the situation. And I think I walked at least 4,000 of the suggested 5,000 steps you're supposed to take everyday, going from my house, to Taskforce Dr, to mall, from bus stop in Central Park to work, then while at work, work to bus stop, then bus stop nearer my house (I'm figuring out how this whole public trans. thing works - I found a closer stop) to home. And that's not even counting the walking I did at home. What I wouldn't give for a pedometer...

Anyway, Bitter or Better. Granted, grandmother is a *****. She's Bitter, capital B. But, I got a lot of exercise (granted in 90 degree heat). And I'm learning the system.

I'm choosing Better.

All right then.

Yesterday, I had a new experience.

I rode the public transit system - Known as the Fred Bus here in Fredericksburg.

In the 12 years or so of my living here, I've never taken advantage of the fact that this area has a public transit, mainly because if I've ever needed a ride somewhere, I've always had someone who could give me a lift, or I've had my own vehicle to get me from point A to point B.

It was definitely interesting. I went from Central Park to downtown. I had to ask the driver what I was supposed to do in order to get downtown - Do I switch buses? Stay on the same one? Do I need to pay another fare?

It turned out that the bus I was on was switching routes from the Central Park area to downtown, so all I needed to do was sit tight. Being my first time, the driver (I wish I had gotten his name, he was incredibly helpful) said I didn't need to pay an extra $.25 when switching routes. He even took me closer to my destination than the actual stop.

All in all, it was pretty nifty.

Just blowing off some creative steam...

(Story time!)

I sat on the picnic blanket and watched as Joey bounded off towards the woods that surrounded our little clearing. I knew he had missed this place for the past hundred years or so. Heck, I missed this place, and I'm not even I a wood nymph.
I stood up and wandered over to the stream and tried to remember how Joey and I had met. It's not often a wood nymph and a water sprite come into contact. It's even less often that they don't immediately try to kill each other. Somehow he and I got past that, although, over a century later, damned if I can recall it.
The water swirled unnaturally, clear in some parts and diamond blue in others. I lowered my hand to let a finger trail just across the surface, relishing the familiar feel of home as the cool liquid caressed that small pad of skin. I could hear the water singing to me, just as I'm sure the trees were singing to Joey. A million whispering voices, singing to me of love and life, of births and deaths, of memories and hopes. I took off my shoes and stepped into the stream, walking to the middle until I found the deepest point. With the waters rushing around my shins and the chorus whispering to me, I called upon the memory of my powers until I felt myself drop beneath the surface.
The current carried me away, and I let it, reveling in the happiness of the moment. Reveling, that is, until an all-too familiar voice said my name.
"Carra." Funny how some people can make a word almost visibly drip disdain.
I sighed. I hadn't even been in the water twelve seconds before the king's favourite toadie found me.
"Hello, Piquine. Tell my uncle not to worry, I'll be out of his realm soon enough. I just needed to refresh myself."
"Right, Carra. Tell him yourself. You've been summoned. Actually, he's been summoning you for the past 75 years, but you've never bothered answering him."
"Does it matter that I've been on land for the past hundred or so?"
"No," Piquine says, giving me his best you're-wasting-my-time look.

Fabulous. I just love family reunions. Hopefully I'll live through it.

Army Wives

I was sitting in the living room as mom was watching Army Wives.

Oh. My. Gosh.

It was hard watching. It covered a lot of issues that military families cope with. But two of the stories really hit me - A woman cheated on her husband while he was deployed, and another family lost a husband/father in the line of duty.

From what I gathered, the woman who cheated on her husband didn't actually sleep with the other guy, who was a co-worker. They kissed, but apparently there was a lot of emotion involved - Husband: Were you in love with him? Her: I don't know.

By the end of the show, they had agreed to go to counseling. He went to a bar and talked to a friend of his who told him to fight. Fight for her, fight for their family. So he went home, and told her he'd do anything to keep her. I sit now wondering how many marriages end that way. How many men come home to find their wives or girlfriends in love with someone else? Or how many women, when their husbands come home, find that they've been cheated on? The latter is more so my concern, as I couldn't cheat on J if my life depended on it. And while I don't believe he'd cheat on me, the fear will always be there of it happening.

I think it's every family's fear of losing someone in the line of duty. Constantly asking themselves if this tour will be the last. Being afraid to turn on the news and hear their name in the lists of people killed that day. Or, most of all, answering the door and finding the Chaplin there. I've read of other women having something called Anticipatory Grief, where you wait and imagine the worst and you accept the hurt that it brings. I didn't think that would hit me until J signed up, officially. But I do think about it. About what I would do if it did happen. And so I pray that it will be ok, that God will protect him. Or maybe just feel sorry enough for me and leave him on earth for a little longer.

Aw. I never knew you cared...

I found out yesterday that my managers actually like me. Well, all except the one. Here's a little bit of back story: We had a manager, Ms. K, re-join the Olive Garden I currently work at (she retired and then came back). When she first started back, things were fine. She and I got along beautifully. Then, about three weeks ago, something changed. I don't know what, exactly, but something must have. I started losing shifts, and now, due to losing shifts, I'm down to four lunch shifts a week. If you've ever worked in a restaurant, you know that lunch is NOT the time to make any money. So, after a couple weeks of bad scheduling, I started job hunting and did not bother to keep it a secret. Apparently, one of the other managers, E, went to the GM (General Manager, for those of you not in the know) and said, "We need to get Meghan a better schedule because you do not want to lose her."

I feel so special :-) I didn't know I mattered that much.

hmmm...

I'm finding that keeping up with a blog is a little more difficult than I first thought. Not because I forget about it. Actually, I find that I often think that I need to write and post something new.

No, the difficulty I'm having is that I don't know what to write.

Being a poet and short story author, I shouldn't have this problem. Not knowing what to write? Psh. I am a writer! I can write. About anything.

About anything other than myself, apparently.

Day One

I have done what I didn't want to do at all - I have joined the gym. I'm pretty determined to be a size 6 by next Spring. Which is probably setting a very easy goal, considering I only have roughly 3 sizes to lose. And over 6 months to do it. But I suppose it's a healthy rate of weight loss. In any case, after having signed up yesterday, today was my first actual day of going. As someone who doesn't really work out in the 'gym' sense, I wasn't sure exactly how to go about dong this. Do I run first? I know I ought to stretch or something - What's the best way to do that? Aren't I supposed to work on different areas different days - Lower body one day, upper the next? What the heck am I doing?!

So here's what I did: Stationary bike for 25 minutes (roughly 2.5 miles I think), some sort of glider/eliptical thingy for 12 minutes (subsequent butt numbness was not pleasant) and then speed walking at an incline for ten minutes. I have done my lower body. Go me. Tomorrow might suck though, as I think I pushed it.

I probably ought to thank (possibly smack) J for getting me to go. He had the membership first, and stuck me down as someone who might possibly be interested. I was called, I came in completely ready to shoot down the offer, and wound up with a one year membership.

I'm such a sap.