A Little Change of Scenery, A Little Change of Scene

It is about 11:00 here in Arizona, and I am going to get ready for bed soon. I just wanted to post something. I'm not sure what... Oh! I know! I'm going to be in Nebraska in a little less than two weeks! Which also means my friend Tom is getting married in a little less than two weeks!

I am excited, and I can't wait to see old friends!

My Call to Duty

I report for my first ever jury duty tomorrow.

Hopefully it will be okay. I had to make sub plans and everything. I always worry if they will know what to do and if the kids will behave.

Meanwhile I have to go to downtown Phoenix. Maybe I'll meet someone interesting. A teacher told me today that when she was summoned she watched movies for the morning and they let them go by lunch time so she went out to eat with her mom and enjoyed the day off.

Now, today was the first day back from a weeklong break, but I'll do my best to do my duty.

My Day at the Phoenician

Today I had brunch with a new friend and her family at this restaurant. I must say it was quite the experience! They unfolded our napkins and put them on our laps and refolded them everytime we left the table. The champagne flowed freely and was very yummy. It was buffet style for brunch. Some of the things I tried on my first trip were: grilled salmon, breakfast sausage, a custom made mini-omlette with mushrooms; peppers; spinach and cheese, french toast with fresh blackberries and raspberries, a blueberry pastry and honeydew juice. Seriously people, everything was freshly made and with the greatest care and attention to detail. On my second trip I tried sushi (I am no longer a sushi virgin!) and french toast with bananas foster. Yum! Then, for dessert I tried chocolate covered strawberries, carrot cake, a fresh chocolate souffle with gran marnier sauce, freshly made mint chocolate chip ice cream and phoenician crunch (which has heath bars crumbled in it) and this amarretto parfait.

The word for the day was opulence. Opulence. I don't think that list does justice to the experience I had this afternoon. There was just great care taken to see that we had everything we needed and the food was rich and overflowing in abundance. I mean, this is how people dined when the feasted in the old days. We ate for, like, two hours. And I don't recommend doing that all the time because it is easy to go to far into gluttony and sloth (and greed, for that matter), but there is some serious value in taking time to savor something rich! Today I got to suck a little marrow out of life. I am grateful for the experience.

What Are Friends For

Yesterday I was able to talk to Jenny on the phone as it is both of our fall breaks. We talked on every subject at great length, and at one point I found myself giving a particularly long monologue on the social implications of websites like facebook, myspace and things like cell phones, text messaging, chat rooms, online dating, etc. At one point I asked, "Are we losing our social skills?" Jenny gave a brief reply and off I went again on the social ills that are knocking at our door because we can't/won't interact anymore on a face-to-face level. I took a pause to listen for comfirmation that my audience was tracking with me. Alas, the slightest noise of affirmation was not made. After an awkward silence, I timidly asked, "Hello?" To which Jenny replied, "Hello...what? Did you go somewhere?" No, I had not gone anywhere. What could explain this curious breech in unspoken rules of verbal communication? Finally an explanation dawned on me. "Jenny, did you fall asleep?" She denied it at first, but I already knew the truth. You see, she had already fallen asleep during the two times I had clicked over to the other line (it was my family's phone line, so I wanted to at least take messages), and explained how tired she was prior to this. So, I could figure out what had happened during that silence where stars were born and died, and entire universes came into being.

Jenny had fallen asleep.

What are friends for but to keep you humble?

I'm Tired

One of the consequences of your life filling out in about as many areas as a person can have (Spiritual, Pleasure, Employment...um, there probably are more) is that there just aren't as many hours in the day as I need.

I have been running around so much lately. To School, to Bible Study, to Dance, to Church. I am tired, tired, tired.

It makes enjoying the fact that I have people and places in my life now a little bittersweet.

I am trying to have a good attitude about it though. I mean, this is what I wanted.

Anyways, it's 7:40 and I'm about to go to bed.

Nighty night.