Eloquent

My friend Kay just left to be a missionary for the LDS church. This is what she posted on her facebook page the day before entering the Missionary Training Center:

“Tomorrow. ....Oh my hell.”

On so many levels, what a thing to say! Am I offended? Au contraire, I think she summed it up quite succinctly. Her phrase is a poem that could be quoted and dissected.

And also, I think the poor thing could use a hug. Honk if being a missionary was one of the hardest things you ever did!

 

May God bless you, Kay.

Human Encounter/ Social Fumble/ I Felt So Bad

As I was biking home on Friday I came to a place in my route where two paths intersect. I needed to turn left but there was another biker approaching from the other direction, right there in my left-hand turn path, and he needed to turn right. In other words we were right in each others' way. 

He was there first so I slowed down. He saw me coming and, perhaps acting as a gentleman, he also slowed down. Realizing that he was going to wait for me to go first, I sped up and rounded the turn. The other man's bike slowed nearly to a stand still as he waited for me to pass. Without warning, he uttered a low, "Oh, sh__!" and he and his bike fell over sideways to the ground, his feet still locked into his pedals.

Yikes! I've never actually witnessed that before. I've never felt personally responsible for it happening to someone else, either. It was so sad! There was nothing he could do to break his fall.

I considered stopping to see if he was OK, but I was afraid. Maybe he would feel ridiculous if a girl who really couldn't do anything to help him anyways and whose fault it was that he fell over stopped to make an even bigger deal about his embarrassing fall.

Should I have stopped? Yeah, it was probably the courteous thing to do. Instead I exclaimed, "Oh no! I'm so sorry!" and stood up in my saddle to pedal quickly away (to gain more speed for the ensuing incline...)

Why do I do the things I do? I sincerely hope that someday my rational thoughts will compute fast enough to govern my split-second decisions. Someday. 

Human Encounter/ Social Fumble/ What would YOU have done?

Etiquette class didn't prepare me for this.

I was having an animated conversation with a co-worker while at a party. We were discussing something about which we were both quite excited, and my friend started to spit a little as he spoke. Just a little, not really a big deal. Then it happened again, and this time the drop of spit flew out of his mouth and landed on my lower lip.

I didn't know what to do. The drop felt about the size of a medium-sized crumb and it kinda stuck there. Perhaps there were some actual crumb components because there did seem to be some substance to it. Anyways, I didn't know what to do. Did he know he had just done that? He certainly didn't acknowledge it. He kept looking steadily at me with unmarred excitement about our discussion. Should I call attention to the fact that he had done it, perhaps in a humorous sort of way? Maybe he wouldn't find it humorous. I could just calmly wipe it off my lip with a napkin, but that might draw attention to it and perhaps make him feel bad. What other options did I have?

I think a normal person would have just wiped it off their lip and said nothing. And if they didn't do that, they would have called out their buddy and laughed together about it.. and then wiped it off their lip. But not me. I just let it sit there. Rather than burst his apparent blissful ignorance, I pretended that nothing had happened. I tried to redirect some of my focus back to him while most of my attention was devoted to the fat spittle-blob hanging out on my lip, wondering if he had noticed it yet and was thinking how gross I was for slobbering like that and not wiping it off.

Police Week motorcades escort themselves!

As I biked across the 14th street bridge yesterday morning I suddenly became aware that the normally bustling bridge was completely void of cars. How unusual. Then I saw a lone policeman on his motorcycle approaching, lights flashing. He lacked the urgency of one headed to an accident scene, so I suspected the next most likely thing in D.C.- a motorcade. A motorcade! They will never cease to be exciting to me. I pulled over my bike.

 

The motocop kept looking over his shoulder, as if he were waiting for something. Indeed, he was waiting for his cronies. Two more motorcycle-police approached. Next came a whole troop of motocops, with lights and sirens wailing. I was having a blast. See, they are riding in formation! Look how, when I wave timidly, they completely ignore me! They are not on parade they are in a motorcade. It must be unprofessional to wave while you're in a motorcade. At last I could see the escortee: tour buses. I really wished that I could see the occupants of the buses but they had darkly tinted windows.  Well, that's nice, I thought. It's Police Week and I'll bet the attendees must be headed to some event in Arlington. Maybe at the Pentagon? That's great that they get escorted by their fellow policemen.

 

Other bicyclists wizzed past me and I wondered, don't they notice that an exciting motorcade is passing?? Why am I the only nerd to stop and watch this thing? The show ended and I pedaled on my way.

 

Not five minutes later, the whole scene was repeated in front of the Washington Monument. I was joined by more and more cyclists as we waited for the second tour-bus motorcade (also headed to Virginia) to clear the intersection. I could hear another cyclist explaining what Police Week was to the man next to him. As they passed in front of the sun, I looked to see the silhouettes of the people inside- but with the sun glinting through I could see that the buses were empty! No passengers. Now why would they create multiple significant traffice disruptions to escort empty tour buses a la motorcade?

 

It is so odd! But I've figured it out. All those motocops were supposed to be riding inside the buses. But of course, what cop would opt for a seat in a bus when they have the option to ride on a motorcycle and wear cool sunglasses instead? So.. they were escorting themselves. Ha, those clever cops.

an exciting new use for an ordinary object

A coworker and I were chatting about this and that as we washed our hands in the ladies room. Then she did something I've never seen before.  She went back into one of the bathroom stalls and retrieved one of the tissue paper toilet seat covers. She proceeded to use it to wipe her face. Perhaps I looked a little stunned, because she offered an explanation, "It's just like the tissues you can buy at the store to mop the oil from your face." I see.

I’m baaaaaack! Please enjoy my first post in almost two years, in which I enquire whether tis better to be a chicken or a goose

During my bike ride to work last week, I came upon a large Canadian goose blocking the bike path. I aimed my bike directly at the goose and pedaled harder. As I accelerated towards the goose, he remained standing defiantly, majestically, suicidally resolute, directly in my path. As the distance closed to less than ten feet, rather than hustling off the path, the goose took a menacing step towards me. At the last moment I swerved, ending the game of chicken and avoiding a collision with the goose. As I rode away, I thought to myself, "I was chicken to a goose."

Now I ask whether tis better to be a chicken or a goose? I (the chicken) backed down from the face-off, choosing to avoid a conflict in which I and the goose would both undoubtedly have been injured to some degree. The goose (the goose) courageously stood in the face of imminent danger, winning the show-down.

 

When that goose stepped towards me rather than away, I was thrilled. I thought it was so awesome, so goose-y. And he won. He was no chicken. He has goose-nerves of steel. But what if I had also decided not to back down, to be a goose instead? Would he have survived that collision? Maybe. He surely would have drawn some of my blood with his raptor-bill in defense and retaliation. But I might have broken his neck. My bike is big, and so am I. So did the goose do well by being such a goose? I suppose, because he's no chicken and he's also unharmed. But that was risky on his part! That's courage for you.

 

When I swerved and became the chicken, I chose to admit defeat rather than to face the consequences of triumph. If the goose had been a chicken and waddled off that path in time, it would have been ok for me to be a goose. But if both of us chose to stay goose to the bitter end, both of us would have been sorry. I decided I didn't want that so I sacrificed courage for safety. Am I doubly chicken because I stepped down not to another human but to a goose- a mere fowl- something smaller and dumber than me? Or rather, did I actually display courage in willingly losing to an inferior opponent? A different type of courage, maybe, but courage nonetheless? Maybe I'm just trying to justify my chicken-ness.

 

Well, here's what I've decided: whether it was courage or cowardice that motivated my actions, I am glad that I was the chicken, and I am glad the goose was the goose. I was so delighted to see that goose be so defiant and brave and cool. And I am so glad that I'm not the jerk that hits a goose with a bike. That would have been horrible. I think we both came out winners; the goose on his spectrum of goosey-ness was fully goose, and I on my humanity spectrum am humane. Phew.