Words_The Handshake Fail

Come April, my time at the community college will have reached 3 years (yikes; I mean, wow). Unfortunately I haven't watched the show Community enough to sufficiently answer if it truly embodies the cc culture, however, if it means encountering weird, awkward, tightly wound science instructors, then yes, it's exactly like that.

One of my main responsibilities at the college is making sure all the Web site content is up to date. This means I manage (nag) around 100+ people (we call them content contributors) to change their "2009s" to "2010s" and their "falls" to "spring" among other endless reminders. It seems like an impossible task and many days it is.

This past week, one content contributor apparently "fell off the face of the earth" as his supervisor described. So the supervisor phoned me, pitched his sob story, and left me no choice but to take his pages under my editorial wing. Classic move. He then sent an e-mail to his department colleague announcing my declaration of adoption which prompted the following phone call with this particular colleague.

"Hi Kimi?"
"Yes."
"I'm Beth, I hear you are taking over our pages for a little while?"
"Yes I am."
"Oh, that's wonderful. Well, I have some event updates for the college that I wanted to go over with you."
"Sure, do you want to send them to me?"
"Send what to you."
"...The events."
Silence.
"You could e-mail them to me... the events."
Silence.
"And I'll put them on the Web site?"
"Well, Kimi, (insert irritated voice) I have never met you before and I really like meeting people first before working with them."
Cue my insides simmering
"Ok..."
"Would you be able to meet today?"
"Um, yeah, I'll be here until one so..."
"You can say no, Kimi," she said laughing, almost spitefully.
What the...?
"No, it's fine," I say. "I won't be able to make your updates today but I can meet with you today."
"Okay, then. What time is good for you?"
"Anytime really, how about 11 a.m.?" (It was 10 a.m.)
Silence.
"Ok...," she finally agreed. I'll see you at 11."

I hang up the phone, my heart beating wildly. I kept returning to the same question: What. The H. Just happened. How was it that the person who should be thanking me for shouldering her and her department's work load was looking more like my adversary than my cheerleader? I hated her. If it was possible, I would have channeled myself through the phone and b-slapped her, maybe twice for good measure.

I willed myself not to think about it and returned to my work. 11 a.m. finally came and I decided that I would set aside my riled up emotions for the sake of this business relationship. This was a professional work setting and I was set on keeping it that way.

I heard some meek footsteps land outside my door. I looked up to see an older, slender woman with a brown disheveled bowl cut. She was smiling--warmly, I might add. I took that as a good sign. I took that as a good start. We were going to pretend that phone call didn't happen; we were going to make this right.

"Hi Kimi," she said.
"Hi Beth," I returned the warm greeting and extended my hand. She extended hers as well and I went in for a firm grip. As I closed my hand around hers, I noticed her hand was barely open, in fact, instead of meeting mine grip to grip, it was more of my grip to her withered hand.

"Ow!" She exclaimed and drew back her hand abruptly. I stared in shock, her reaction generously unfitting for the mild offense. She rubbed her hand and said, "I've got rings on, you know."

Again, the same question arose in my head. What. The H. Just happened.

"I'm sorry," I managed finally and sat down quickly in my chair, turning my attention to my computer screen. Had I entered the twilight zone? Was I the one going crazy? Or was withery mcwitheron out of her mind.

She broke the silence and like a switch began to talk brightly about the events she wanted updated.

"So we have a special event happening in April, I sent you that e-mail," she said as I opened up the document file.

"Ok," I said.

"And then we have an event in February," she paused. I turned in her direction and realized she was waiting for me to document it somehow. She had nothing on paper to give me. She didn't take the time to write any of this down for me or save a tree and e-mail it over to me. She waited for me to acknowledge her words. I awkwardly shuffled some papers toward me and began to scribble the date. Then, she continued, "March 16... April 20...May..."

It took a total of 10 seconds for her to breathe these dates out to me.
I copied them down.
I looked over at her, sending a thousand imaginary darts into her face. Bullseye.

"Well, thanks Kimi, I'm glad I got to meet you."
"Yeah, it was nice meeting you."
I didn't dare try to shake withered McGee again.

She promptly rose and shuffled out the door.

I sat a little bewildered in my chair, replaying the entire five minutes over in my head, realizing that more than half of that time was taken up with me experiencing a major handshake fail. What could have been avoided was instead painfully played out in a bizarre unfurling of events. And it wasn't long until I came round again with the question of the day:

What. The H. Just happened.

Listen_Farewell Freeness

What They're Saying

I'm going to seriously whore them out in Boston, KY jelly required- jk/ gross!!! //Mandy

I will try my best to do some if not all of the following to support yo man! //Erin

1. You are a great girlfriend.
2. Where do I click to listen? j/k.
3. When can we meet to pray?
// Erin A.

You're awesome. Thanks for thinking of me. And now to send out those notices...
//Brandon

I'd be happy to support them and pass on this info to others.
//Scotty

Done. excited to hear this. hopefully my five friends will be too. (uh, i have more than five friends, i mean, whatever, who are you to judge me?) //Jeff W.

I got Robbe's Farewell Flight CD and I loooooovvvveee it! Can I please come with you to their next concert and be a little groupie?! hehe //Abby

so I listened to the samples as an "owe-it-to-friend-favor" and LOVED it! Just emailed my 5 friends, and I am anxiously awaiting my free download : ) //Jami

"Love these guys as do my five friends!  Do they want to do a concert in Nebraska any time soon?:)  I didn't know you were dating a musician.  I would like that, I think.  I pretend Josh is a rock start sometimes for fun:)" //Andi 

I think I'm falling for them. :) //Stephanie A.

Words_The Waiting Room

A thousand times
The same words, the same cry
The same chair that understands
Every curve in my spine

Every day the scale shifts
Deeper into my own hands
Relieving nothing and forgetting everything
That weighs immeasurably more
Than the hope that my stepping left or stepping right 
Changes anything at all

A hundred times I thought of you
Alone and heavy yet weightless and floating
In my dreams we were free
Unfolding like the heavens and the earth
And the endlessness of stars

Yet here in this room
In the strongest of silence
Where hope beats against the heart
And loss is shouldered in surrender
Broken words are made new
Light is traded for darkness

The voices I yearn for
To lead and to save
Drown out my cry
In a wild harmony
That rewrites my words
That rescues my fall
As the room becomes smaller
And their song beckons me to come in.

Photos_Farm Show 2010

On January 16 Robbe and I took on PA's annual farm show where we befriended a colorful cast of sheep, chicken, bunnies, and ducks. We made a generous stop at the wine sampling table, saw some sheep get molested and paraded around a dirt floor poop mine, and watched baby ducks walk an elevated plank thinking they were getting a quick bite to eat but instead took an ill-fated plunge into the water below. Here is our great adventure (cue Steven Curtis Chapman)...

"The Towering Cow"
If I would have seen someone start to bow down and worship it, I was so outta there!

Robbey and the most photogenic lamb ever

"Afro Sheep"
I thought he was rocking "the Daryl" from The Office

"The Runners"
Warming up before the marathon

"KKK"
I was appalled he even decided to show up

 

"The Slackers"

I think they lit up one too many today

"Romeo and Juliet"
Forbidden lovers

"Lady Gaga"

"Walking the plank"

...and then plunging into the water! So sad!

"Quick nap"

"1st Korean Winner in Hay-Bailing Contest"

"Hanging Tough"

We actually photoshopped the tractor in; the original photo shows Robbe holding onto a cabinet door handle

"Swine Who?"

An odd poster in a farm display

"Tires and tires and tires, oh my!"

Big tires, no big deal

"Going Home"

We've been officially farm showed and it feels good.

And smelly.

Words_Baby Got Gas

After a slew of generous backrubs, a continous stand-in-place jostle, a squeaky and shadow-mesmerizing ride in the rocking chair, a detour to the bathroom to remove residual snot from under the nose, another detour downstairs to watch some DVRed American Idol, a very brief and awkward ride in a broken swing (I thought it looked funny), more jostling (but this time sitting down), freestyle floortime (aka, maybe he'll think the floor is like his bed and will just close his eyes and go to sleep), and some toy distractions in the crib, Gabe has finally gone to--

Wait, he just coughed.

Holding my breath...

Still holding...

--sleep.

Ah...

Photos_GASP! The End of Conan?!

Something timely...

Words_for January 2010

TO DOS:


Pick up my Harry Potter book
(C'mon Kimi, you're so close to the end of the series!) I just need to read the darn thing. Believe me, it's incredibly good and I eat it up (it's like buttah); it's just actually finding the time to sit down and enter my literary bubble of magic and wizards and brooms and spells is the problem. I'm attempting to solve this problem by putting "READ" on my daily agenda. I'll let you know how it goes.

Be more assertive
I took my dry cleaning to a new business across the street; mostly for the convenience. I usually frequent The Dry Clean Depot ($1.75, are you singing the song?) but thought I'd give this one a whirl since it's only a 2 minute drive (if that). An added bonus is that the owners are really adorable Korean people who probably talked about me after I told them to key in "Raspa" on the ticket. ("Raspa", what is that; she's probably married to some white guy with severe yellow fever; they're taking all of our women; let's charge her more, that'll teach her a lesson.) Or they might have just noted how I looked as if I had gone to the gym when in fact, I hadn't, I just didn't get a chance to take a shower for a day...or two. Anyway, I had two items to dry clean: a dress and dress pants. My receipt said $13.90. For someone who usually pays $1.75 per item, you might as well have punched me in the crotch. But I smiled and promised to return within a few days to pick up my items and kept thinking about how cute the little Asian lady was and how she giggled after every number I gave her when she asked for my phone number. (Oh, Asians...)

I return to pick up my items. It's a man this time. He has the same giggly, googly presence. He at first brings me the wrong order. "$20.30" he says. I tell him that's not my order. More giggles. He then retrieves the correct order. "$20.30" he says again. I point to the receipt attached to my clothes and say, "Do you mean $13.90?" He shakes his head but then does a double take. "Oh!" He exclaims and looks at his computer. He then explains that the hem of my dress came out during cleaning and they had to hem it back into place, thus charging me $7.50.

The assertive person in me (who was apparently buried or unavailable or unconscious) was dying to say: "You should have called me when this happened and shouldn't have assumed that I would have wanted it hemmed here when I could have done it myself or had another capable person do it for significantly cheaper, if not for free. I'm a brand spanking new customer as of three days ago and I don't think it's right that you tacked this on to my bill; I'm not paying for the hem, although I appreciate the gesture, you should have called me first, and if you want to keep a customer, you'll take the $7.50 off pronto."

But the realistic, people-pleasing, whatever-it's-just-$20 person in me said:
"Oh.... okay. Um... fine." And I reluctantly handed over the $20.
So what could have been a $4 total errand turned into a $20 Korean money-grubbing miscommunicado jokes on me scenario. Boo.

Do the Hard Thing
That's what she said? Too often I shy away from difficult scenarios whether it's work, relationships, hobbies, whatever. This past year I saw a lot of my relationships toughen in good ways and bad. Sometimes the test of a friendship is how you stand by that person when unfortunate things happens. I'm not sure I've been a very good friend historically. But I think this past year made me see the necessity to brave it out even when you're wrong or hurt or confused or maybe you don't see eye to eye. But you need to brave the bull to test the strength of what's really important. Avoiding hurt or communication is retreating from where God wants us to be which is in community and love with one another. I'm not good at this but I want to try. It's not even up to me whether I should or shouldn't power through a relationship; it's God who pushes me and gives me the strength to do what I know I can't, especially when I have no desire to. It's a tough lesson to learn because you have to really put others first, which is the last thing I want to do.