February 04, 2009

Back to the Blog

Well here I am after the kids are down for the night and instead of reading my book club book or getting to that last load of laundry at the end of the laundry tunnel I am blogging. Nothing special to say tonight, just a random entry about my day. I had a nice day as the house is still pretty clean from MG coming on Monday, and the laundry, like I said is at a minimum. A recipe for a happy mom is a clean house and minimal laundry. When the kids came home and spilled sunflower seeds all over the place I was not a happy camper!

I volunteered for my usual 2.5 hours at the elementary school. I am there during Big Girl's art class and there is a sweet if somewhat aging and senile art teacher I will call Ms Repeat. Ms Repeat is obviously Jewish Orthodox, wears a wig and skirts all the time, and speaks with an accent. She spends most of the kid's art time instructing the class on how to do a thing and then repeating herself, or trying to recall a child's name (she tells me she has 600 names to remember-sheesh I'd be a wreck!). Then she gets sidetracked by forgetting a name and repeats herself. She has also repeated the following to me on just about every visit I have made to her class. "So why aren't you here every Tuesday?" I tell her it is because I go to my older son's class on the other Tuesday. Tuesday is the day I have a sitter for my two year old I explain. "Oh... So you can't come during your son's art time on Wednesday too?" "No" "Well you could always bring the two year old with you" "Ummmm..... No thanks : )" Then two weeks later when I show up again, I will tell her my name and repeat the volunteer conversation with her. It's kinda fun predicting just how long this time it will take her to ask me the 'can't you come every week?' question. She is a great art teacher and the kids really love her though- so it's all good.

Then I went grocery shopping where I almost ran into a lady's runaway cart in the parking lot. Actually almost is too strong of a word for it. I was completely stopped in anticipation of her losing the cart, and she did- so I was safe as was she-and the cart. All was well. I wonder why they don't level out the parking lots here. It's an eastern thing I think. I don't recall this problem in Iowa, California, Utah, or Korea for that matter. Anyways as I got out of the car the cart woman who I will call 'Chatty' came over to tell me what good defensive driving skills I have. She then went on to tell me that teenagers have no such skills and neither do husbands. "Husbands pick a child up after they have fallen, Mothers see the fall before it happens and stop the child from falling." Perhaps I should have named Chatty 'Careful' instead. Or 'Needs Therapy.' I told her btw that I developed my wicked good defensive driving whilst living in Seoul where they drive like maniacs. I then noticed that I like to just drop the whole "I lived in Korea" thing a lot. Like it makes me more special or something. A stand out. On a deeper understanding about all things Korean or asian. If I see someone asian and I am standing next to them for more than about 2 minutes I just almost can't help asking where they are from so I can drop the whole 'lived in Korea' thing.  Funny because while I lived there I longed to be back on US soil for many reasons, and now in my heart I am still thinking about Korea all the time.  

There was an asian woman in the produce department but we did not speak.  I had my eye on her though- like a stalker!  Then I was behind her in line and I started noticing what she was purchasing to see if that gave me a clue as to her nationality. Nothing unusual. Then she spoke to me and that opened the door. She had no real accent, but as we got more friendly in line out it popped "So are you from Korea? I just have to ask because I lived there you see, and that makes me all mysterious and smart, and hard working right? Can you feel it? Did you see that defensive driving out there about 30 minutes ago- that was me in the Honda Odessy... yes really!" She was from Hawaii.... Oh I am losing my touch!  I wished her aloha and slunk back to the car where I defensively drove home with my tail between my legs.  



3 comments:

Bob and Julie said...

wow...you had a multi-cultural day...well, excluding the Hawaii mishap...we'll still go for Korea on that one:) I'm glad the laundry is at a minima and that your house is still somewhat clean. I am TOTALLY jealous though!! Thanks for blogging :)

Tom said...

I like the ending about being from Hawaii. I have said things that I wish I could take back a few seconds later so I feel your pain. I think it would be fun to do a post about times people have put their foot in their mouth. I'm sure we all have plenty to share in that department.

Kelly said...

Chaka, I have a doosy for you in the embarrassing things I have said dept. Feel free to use it on your awesome blog. As a young single dental hygienist I was performing an oral cancer screening on a handsome young man and told him to 'please put your tongue on the top of my mouth' Now THAT was embarrassing!!! He didn't do it btw...