Lemons = Lemonaid

Things are turning up around here...but some pieces (hopefully) are still falling into place. Stay tuned.

Zzzz's in AZ

As a rule I don't like hot weather. Or flat land. You can imagine, then, just how excited I was to go to Yuma, AZ. But God's creations are all beautiful in their own way, yadda yadda yadda, and oh yeah, my parents were there. So, Friday found Ben and me making a road trip down south, cracking peanut shells and spitting sunflower seeds respectively, and listening to this on cd. Mia didn't seem to mind riding with two sci-fi geeks, but probably missed the surprising theological and psychological undertones to this NOT children's book (I have to make a similar proclamation to the library clerk to make up for last week when I exclaimed, "You're 12!" at the check out counter after observing Ben's selection of this book on cd, as well as this book. But I digress...)

The trip was exactly what I needed. Lots of sleeping, leisurely mornings with coffee and conversation, catching up on my Reader's Digest, and playing ladder golf. It was good to see Mom and Dad before they head back to Missouri and to get a break from the rat race that is my life right now. Sigh. Back to 5 am wake up calls. But at least it's cool in Pasadena. For now.

Pondering...

I read this book a few weeks ago and have been flirting with the idea of becoming a vegetarian. Let the judgment begin, but know the decision is about so much more than simply being an animal lover.

Neighborhood Watch

Last Thursday I made a comment on Facebook about almost running into a skunk on my morning walk with Mia and joked about how dangerous the streets of Pasadena were. That night I almost had to eat my words.

In the 4 years we've lived in our apartment, we've had (now) two incidents that were odd/scary/funny-when-you-tell-the-story-later (if you don't count this). Otherwise, our neighborhood is very quiet, very pleasant, very boring. Just how I like it.

Except for last Thursday night.

Ben and I had gone to bed early. Like 9 pm early. Because our alarm goes off disgustingly early in the morning. So, when I was woken by strange noises around 11, I was very groggy and it felt like it was in the wee hours of the morning. Eventually I figured out the noises were voices and realized I was listening to some kind of argument. "Great," I thought and immediately assumed it was my lame neighbor and his friends. But then I started hearing snippets of the fight, something about someone calling their mom, something else about a license plate number, so I figured it was the aftermath of a car accident. So, I tried to ignore the voices and go back to sleep.

Until I heard, "Stop it! Let go of my arm, let go of my arm!"

I immediately sat straight up in bed and thought,"Oh no - someone's in trouble!" So I scurried out from under the covers, found my shoes, dug my phone out of my purse, and went outside.

Because that's the most logical thing to do when you think there's a serious fight happening outside of your home.

Okay, so maybe I wasn't thinking logically, but I was thinking about this. Such is the curse when you teach social psychology. The only thing going through my head was, "If I don't help her, who will?!"

When I walked out onto the street, I saw about 6 or 7 people standing in a group by the school across the street from us. None of them look familiar and most people look familiar to me in this neighborhood. Two of them (girls) spotted me and quickly made their way towards me. One, who had a cell phone pressed against her ear, said, "Ma'am! Ma'am! Where are we?!" I calmly told her the street and the cross streets, which she relayed into her phone.

"What's going on?" I asked

"Well, see, my friends and I, we're dancers, and we came to dance for these guys. But then they started getting creepy and they wouldn't let us out of their apartment, and then they took my friend's phone and won't give it back, and now they're being physical with us!"

"Did you call the cops?" I asked, while trying to make sense of the story.

"Yeah - I'm on the phone with them right now." The girl turns her attention back to whomever's on the line and I hear her try to explain the situation to them. This whole time there's still a screaming match going on between another girl and some of the guys by the school. The girl is hysterical and freaking out. Suddenly I see a guy reach out and grab her and she screams for help.

"HEY!" I yell across the street. "What's going on?!"

The guy lets go of her arm and every single person turns to face me.

And that's when it occurs to me.

"Holy shit, I'm going to get myself killed." (Pardon my language, but I got really, really scared in that moment.)

Thankfully, instead of brandishing sawed-off shotguns, or some other stereotypical scary weapon, the guys start to move away from the school and toward a car up the street. The hysterical girl comes toward us, still screaming at the guys. When she reaches us, I ask her what's going on.

"Those guys? They took my cell phone and won't give it back. They won't let us leave. They won't leave us alone."

Then one of the guys shouts back some choice words, calling her a liar and other names, saying she took his keys. She responds with more yelling, none of it making sense. So, I tell her to calm down, to breathe, that the police are coming. Then her friend, the one on the phone, asks her what her boyfriend's name is.

"Blue," she answers.

"Like the color?"

"Yes."

And her friend repeats all of this into the phone. And I think, "What the heck? This is a boyfriend?"

And the next thing I know, the guys drive away and the girls get in a car and drive away, too. And I'm standing by myself in the deserted street.

WHAT JUST HAPPENED?

I make my way back into our apartment to find a bewildered Ben standing at the door.

"What were you DOING out there?!" he demands.

"I was trying to figure out what was going on and help."

"Why didn't you wake me?!"

"Because you sleep like a rock and need to be up early, anyway. It didn't occur to me until two minutes ago that I might get shot."

"Well, you could at least have taken Mia with you!"

"I don't want her to get shot!"

He shakes his head in disbelief and exasperation. I'm shaking, period. Everything's catching up to me and I'm realizing how stupid the move was that I just pulled.

"Maybe next time you could just look out the window and call the cops from inside the apartment?" he asks.

"Yes," I answer, fully admonished.

"And maybe next time you'll just wake me up?" he continues.

"Okay, okay! I didn't get hurt - I'm fine. Calm down!"

And we went to bed. And when I woke up the next morning, it all felt like a very strange dream. But no, Ben was quick to remind me that it really happened and I really was an idiot.

Lesson learned: you can avoid diffusion of responsibility in the safety of your own home, and thereby avoid scaring the bejesus out of your husband.

Call of Duty

Ben is playing video games with a friend to nurse their bruised egos from this morning's loss in the basketball tournament. I'm working in the kitchen when I notice odd, muffled sounds from the living room. Confused, I round the corner to see what's going on. They're talking strategy about how to attack the bad guys, whom they're currently hiding from in the bushes. And they're whispering.

Because, clearly, the bad guys might hear them.

Pacific Virgin