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Friday, September 21, 2007

Hope and the Flipside of the Coin

So this morning, at 8:40 am, I thought of the most wonderful post. I dropped off the hubby, did my time at the gym, excited to come home and post. A mere hour later, I experienced the other side of my post... so I thought I'd share both with you. It's fall here. I think it's fall mostly everywhere else too, but fall in the city means something very strange and mysterious. Crossing Guards. It is incumbent on the Jersey City Crossing Guard to direct traffic at times, in order to get their charges safely across the road. Unfortunately, as with most Jersey City citizens, the crossing guards do not know traffic laws. (I am beginning to believe there are no actual traffic laws in Jersey City...) However, on this bright and beautiful morning, I saw something amazing. There are two lights in a row that have left turn arrows. Purposely, to allow those cars to turn left unimpeded (the idea behind the brilliant left turn arrow) the crosswalk signs remain at "Don't Walk." Usually people ignore this and, seeing that the light is red on their side, they begin to walk, holding up the left turning people, making them angry so that they try to force their way into the intersection even beyond their left turn arrow and they in turn block up oncoming traffic, because by this time, more people have showed up at the crosswalk and by now the sign says "Walk" so they do. I hate traffic. BUT TODAY!!! A lovely crossing guard held our her stop sign forcing the 2 people waiting at the cross walk to wait until the green arrow had gone to yellow! She looked to see that there were no more cars waiting to turn left, and only then did she let her charges cross the street!! I am praying heaps of blessings down on her head right now. Mind you, I didn't turn left until the next intersection, but to see that there was common sense in existence in Jersey City was a miracle. But then. My hope for the good of all that is common sensical here in Jersey City was dashed to pieces. You may have seen in the national news that the school districts in Emerson, New Jersey had received a bomb threat earlier in the week. Emerson is a bit away, but we in the city have come to realize that we are always living slightly on guard. So on my way home from the gym, I have to pass by a school. I noticed that traffic was stopped and there seemed to be a sea of little yellow polo shirts crossing the road. There were a couple of cop cars and a public school safety vehicle. In retrospect, it may have only been the requesite fire drill, but due to the limited space in Jersey City, when a school needs to be evacuated, students must often cross a road to be a safe distance away. I got stuck in the traffic of them crossing back to the school yard to reassemble and re-enter the school. Mind you, it is a LARGE school. There were a lot of yellow polo shirt clad children crossing the road. I, being on a runners high after the gym and listening to my favorite new song on the radio, put my car in park, thankful that the children all seemed to be ok, and the school was intact. ( I have seen what happens when its not just a drill.) Next to me, a guy proceeds to lay on his horn, voicing his frustration that the line of traffic was not moving. I, having the common sense of the wise traffic guard, knew that the line of traffic would start moving when the children were all across the street and the waiting cops allowed traffic to move again. Non-common sense driver next to me thought that laying on his horn, oh not once, but TWICE mind you, would magically move the entire line of traffic through the line of children and the waiting cops without getting him thrown in jail. Pray for the common sense of Jersey City. We could use some.

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Body Divots and the Four-Legged Bed Invader

I was away last week for six days. I was in British Columbia being wined and dined and golfed into a blissful oblivion. Joey was here in Joisey working like crazy. Speedy had the house to himself. Not a good plan. When Joey would finally get home, he would crawl into bed and wait for my very late call (British Columbia and New York evidentaly are not on the same time zones...). Speedy decided to keep him company and helped himself to my side of the bed. Joey informed me during our nightly phone call that Speedy was sleeping in a human fashion, head resting on my pillow. I was not pleased. I don't like to share my pillow. I told Joe this was probably not a good thing to allow as the rightful owner of the right side of the bed would soon be home. We have spent this whole week waking up every couple of hours to the little "tap tap tap tap" of Speedy's nails as he leaves his perfectly lovely house with wonderful fluffy pillows to come jump into our bed, nudging us out of the way and burrowing under the covers. Joey will push him out of bed, he'll come around to my side, stand up agains the rail, and I say "Speedy, go lay down." It's not a nightly ritual I like. What I like even less than a fuzzball in my bed is a body divot. We splurged and got the 'baffle-box construction feather bed with synthetic feathers'. All of which makes it sound like you'll be sleeping on a cloud of air. Except the cloud only lasts for all of 2 minutes. If you don't fall asleep in those two minutes, you can feel the faux feathers compressing into your body shape, loosing all of its fluffy comfort. I've been trying to be more efficient on my Wednesday laundry day, making the bed as soon as I get back from the laundromat. Only, I've been finding out that once I fluff the feather bed and put the sheets on, Speedy decides that it is indeed the most comfortable place in the house, and since he has taken a liking to my side of the bed, we'll come home from our Wednesday life groups to find that the nice fluffy bed is all ready for us to climb into, with a large, dacshaund-shaped dent on my side. Ah, life with the pup.

Friday, September 7, 2007

So the thing about trust is....

So I realize I start 90% of my posts with "so". Random thought, but that's me. Anywho, on to the post. We went to Flemington for the Revelation Generation festival and Labor Day. We decided to take our pup, Speedy. It was his first big trip in the car. The ride out to Flemington was pretty bad. We'd gotten sedatives for him, but didn't have enough time for them to take effect before we had to get under way. We also had car trouble on the way out, so long story short, we're careening, ala "Speed" around the circles in Flemington and Speedy is pacing in the back, eventually loosing his bread that we had to feed his pill to him with. But after a good weekend, filled with off the leash roaming, steak bones and love from every person in sight, we were ready to head home. We gave Speedy his pill plenty of time in advance (so much so that he was tripping around staring at butterflies) and then loaded him in the car. We'd laid down the plastic sheet, he had the whole backseat to himself with his bed and his favorite pillow, yet he never fell asleep. He kept trying to get up, putting his paw up on the console between the front seats. So I wondered aloud to Joey, "Why doesn't he just trust us. He knows we love him and we're not getting rid of him" (we think his previous owner may have given him cause to fear the car) but for some reason, he still hasn't let go and won't trust us completely. There's still a wariness in his eyes that says he's not sure if we're the ones who will love him for the rest of his life. Then it hit me. I'm asking my little clueless pup to do the same thing God is asking of me. God's got wonderful things in store for me, and the journey itself is part of the adventure. Yet I won't just lay down and trust Him. How much better would it be if I would.