Trip to Town, pt. 1!

This weekend I was IN TOWN. Which is the local term for being out of town, in the Big City. (It's a Newfoundland thing.) I went to a concert, and a party, and the mall, and BOOK STORES, and wished greatly for more time, but overall it was ver' shiny. I shall begin at the beginning, and recap. *clears throat*

My whole family had to go in for a party on Sunday, and because it's a four or five hour drive (depending on how many bathroom breaks we take and how closely we pay attention to the speed limit,) we decided to go in on Saturday, scatter to spend time with friends, and then return in time for work on Monday. Because I'm awesome, I got to go in with the early car. *smug* I'm not sure if I've mentioned it, but my dad has awesome taste in music. (I'm serious!) I generally leave the car with a list of at least four songs I need to buy for my own, and this time was no different.

Anyhow, after four hours of music and coffee, we got to Town. So we immediately went to the mall. (We're from a small town, what can I say?) Daddy was meeting people for business, and I was christmas shopping. It was- busy. People filling the concourse, I can take. It's like moving through an airport, and the crowds have no real connection to me. Crowds in stores, are not so much fun. I was going to try to spend a gift card on some work clothes, so I marched my way into the designated shop. I saw the line for the changing room stretch past the cashes, and marched right back out again. But I fought my way past the messy hordes in Sears, and bought the required gifts! The time in line was long enough to hear all about the latest divorce of the woman behind me, and her starbucks addiction, which information just added to the flavour of the day. It's not a proper trip to the mall without hearing personal information you wish you hadn't!

But I hadn't had enough punishment yet, I still felt the need to shop! I went to American Eagle, grabbed pretty things, saw the prices, put most of the pretty things back... Also, has anyone noticed how many layers the models in that store wear? I mean, I counted six layers in one instance, and she still didn't look warm. I had time to count, because I was in line for many, many minutes. *draws a veil over the line* It was long enough that once I was released I walked with a sense of urgency to the bookstore. Bookstores just calm the panic, y'know? And there I realized that I've been watching quite a few "best of the year" lists of YA books go by, lately, and these books were actually THERE, in FRONT OF ME, for SALE. And I had MONEY. (Not for long...)

I bought books. *cough*

I bought quite a few books. It's research, right? And I haven't been in a new bookstore in a year, and any bookstore at all in eight months. So we'll just pass by the issue of how much money I spent there...

Oh, and then we went to Chapters. ^_^

Daddy had to tell me not to unbuckle before we were fully parked. "It's not a tactical strike!" I actually skipped into the store, and literally was cooing over the bookshelves at one point. (I love how the staff is so jaded, they don't even blink when you're all but making out with your new purchases. (No, that wasn't me, that was a guy with some new Manga, which he apparently had abstained from for too long)) So I, uh, got some more reading material there. But by then my panic in the mall and euphoria over new books was starting to show, in addition to the fact that I hadn't eaten for quite a few hours. So we went to a restaurant! I had fajitas, and they were lovely.

Let me see, what else happened? Oh yes! Then Daddy dropped me off at a friend's house, and we talked for an hour before I walked down and saw the Messiah, then I came back and we watched two movies. Busy day, yes?

I shall talk about Messiah tomorrow. Sleep is calling me now. Okay, okay, I hear you! Bye, internets!

"... and then I saw the highlighters that were also necklaces..."

When I was little I thought that dollar stores were TEH AWESOMEST THING IN TEH WORLD.

Then I became a teenager, and discovered social conscience and snobbery, and decided that nothing in a dollar store was worthy.

Then I got a job, and extended that to Wal-mart, and anything within 200 miles of my house (excluding bookstores.) None of you deserve my my heard-earned money! I must spend it in the CITY!!!

I think I grew out of those particular stages. I went to the dollar store the other day to get tupperware.

An hour later, I spent 57 dollars on purchases including a candle that smelled like coffee, and shiny luggage locks that are just so SHINY. I nearly bought a stuffed fish that was quite possibly the tackiest thing ever made- simply because it was tacky. Thankfully Frauline was there to drag me away from the iridescent leprous fish with floppy lips, stuffed with dust from thailand.

Then we found the wedding section. Have you ever seen the wedding section in a dollar store? Did you know you can buy a veil for five dollars, champagne glasses for four, a "do not disturb we're on our honeymoon" door hanger for two fifty, and a tablecloth and two bundles of lace for fifteen (to make the dress)? THERE IS NOTHING MORE YOU EVEN NEED. One stop shopping, right there. (I also may have had a laughing attack internally over a place holder that was a pair of grisly severed hands. Nothing says romance like a pair of severed hands!)

And I mean, the hilarity continues. Have you ever seen the make-up section? I swear the original nail polish that I was bought for learning to read was on that rack, for a dollar. And the pictures on the eyeshadow seem to indicate you should buy this if you are colour blind or legally blind.

Er, so far I haven't managed to give a good explanation for why I actually spent money on things. But I ask you. Don't you see the appeal of a potato peeler where the handle is actually shaped like a potato? Isn't that magical?

Isn't it?

...

Perhaps I shouldn't be allowed outside with money....

No, you don't get a title. You haven't EARNED a title.

I do a lot of internal monologuing, which is why the byline of my blog is what it is. But I don't share all of it. Because frankly, no one needs to hear me when I get really adolescent. Sometimes I cringe at hearing whatever I'm griping about now. My whine sessions usually end with hilarity, and all is well. And today the hilarity was such that I think I SHALL share it. I found myself consoling myself with this gem;

"Christianity is not a vending machine! It's not an- insert faith/good works, receive book deal/cute boyfriend/ travel tickets- deal!"

And then I laughed at myself and continued on. :D

I made butter toffee today with Fraulien! No you can't have any. *gloats* And Yesterday we had a fire across the street. It was t'mendous exciting. I don't know why I felt the need to write that in a lisp, but there you go... ANYHOW! (this is a good song)

When the chimney looked like this, Mommy called the Fire Department.

They all started arriving in state! So I started leaning out the window and taking pictures. Of Course.

We have a Voluntary Fire Department, so people were arriving still in their work clothes. I saw two pharmacists arrive, for instance.

The inside was all fire, so they did mysterious things with a pike and a chain to put it out. I didn't understand, but it looked cool!

Safety first. That's all I have to say...

And then the fire was out and life continued as per normal.

With many power lines.

On the one hand, I slept through my alarm and was late to work.

On the other hand, I found out I can go from horizontal, asleep in a tangle of blankets- to upright, clothed and in my right mind, wearing a nametag and at work, in under seven minutes.

I was just reminded of how AWESOME this is. In the original sense of the word.

Our Father

Who art in heaven

Hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come

Thy will be done

On earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread

And forgive us our trespasses

As we forgive those who trespass against us.

Lead us not into temptation

But deliver us from Evil.

For thine is the Kingdom

And the Power

And the Glory

Forever and Ever.

Amen.

If you think this is an easy prayer, perhaps you should think about it a little bit more. Alternatively, you are a saint, and I respect you greatly.

"Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth/ And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;"

When I was little we lived in Germany, for two years. I remember castles and excitement, (everything is more exciting when you're four) and pretzels and travel. Those were good pretzels. And when they're the size of your head, they're even BETTER.

Looking back, I find I remember details that I'm sure an older person wouldn't think significant. Things like running up the stairs, and finding a dead mouse in the flower beds, and poking fuzzy caterpillars that rippled alarmingly. It was all very exciting. We also, because my dad was serving in Fourth Service Battalion, went to war memorials. When you are four you think gun emplacements on cliffs are things to climb on, and you're more interested in pommes frites in Dieppe than the fact that thousands of your countrymen died on that beach made of interesting rocks. There was one memorial, however, which I remember being serious, even when I was there.

That was Vimy.

When you're four, the crosses in the cemeteries go on forever. And then you get in the car and drive over past the trees, and there are new crosses. And they go on forever again. I somehow managed to understand the idea that each cross was a person, and it baffled me. For that matter, it still baffles me. There are so many graves. I'm twenty one now, so quite a few of those graves belong to people who were younger than me. It's one of those things where my mind just can't take it in.

And then we went up on the memorial, which was huge and windy, and white. Lots of names. I've seen pictures, and I want to go back. At the time I just, sadly, remember running around and wondering what the statues were for. Grandeur is wasted on the very young. (Even if I did think I was an adult. :P)

But there was also a section of no man's land that was kept as is, not landscaped smooth. We went over there and poked around. Have you ever seen a shell hole? It's like someone has taken an ice cream scoop to the ground. This was almost ninety years later, and you still had to walk along ridges between these gaps in the ground. The proportions I remember are probably incorrect. I remember these half-circles in the ground being so large that you couldn't quite hear from the other side. And they were really hard to get out of. That was the place that I remember being most, serious. It takes an impressive place to make a four year old feel sober, but that was the most in-awe I remember being until I was about nine. You can read about what things meant, but seeing them in person is sometimes necessary to start to understand. I really, REALLY want to go back.

That's been a disjointed ramble with little or no point. :P War Cemeteries are awe-inspiring. You should go. Oh, and Rose put up some poems on her blog. That you should read.

November brings out the optimist in me.

I had yet to learn that all human relationships end in pain.
-Douglas H. Gresham

Over the past two years the number of relationships I've been in has grown a lot. Not that kind of relationships, you sillies! *scoffs at you* I mean my relations with other people. My friendships, the people who I know and follow, the numbers have gone up.

(I'm also doing Nano for the second time, so my grammar is shot to pieces. YAY INCOHERENCY.)

This past week I've been realizing that a side effect of having more relationships is seeing those relationships come to an end. And really, there is no way for a human relationship to end painlessly. Either the friendship 1.) grows to an end and shatters- (watch out for emotional shrapnel!) it 2.) withers and just dies (I've yet to see the grave of a relationship without some sort of regret around it) or it 3.) survives until the death of one or more members of the relationship.

Option three sounds like the best one, doesn't it? Maximum happiness. Yes, until the whole death thing. Our culture doesn't talk about death, we like to pretend it doesn't happen. "If I can't see it, it's not there, right? Death is for old people! I'm young!" Since I've been a legal adult, I've had my hiding privileges slowly revoked. There have been a lot of reasons for that, including cancer in the family, and working in a job which means I mainly deal with the over-sixty-five crowd.

"How've ya been?"

"Oh fine, fine. Had a heart attack last week."

"Ah. Wonderful weather we're having, eh?"

But anyways, I had a point to this, didn't I? Ah yes.

Human relationships invariably end in pain. *shrugs* Enjoy'm while they're fresh folks, they don't last.

BUT.

Yes, there is a "but." I may be tired but I'm not THAT depressed. As Christians, we're not simply human. We have a hope for life after death, and our relationship with God does not end.

Ever.

Which to me- caught in a rash of being afraid to go on the internet and see who else is dying/breaking up/having a death in the family/oh, dying/did I mention the specatular prepondernace of DEATH lately- is an encouraging thought.

Yay, I'm only demi-human! Or maybe it's like the ASCAAP/BMI royalty schemes, and there's two hundred-percent pies? Fully Mortal body and fully Immortal soul? This is probably heretical, now. I should stop writing.