I don't have time to write full stories about everything that's been happening to me, but there have been a few moments that have left impressions, and I wanted to document them.
So here are a few random scenes.
Suddenly he swung the massive truck into a parking lot. "Wait here," he said. "I've gotta see my friend for a minute."
He got out and headed to a storefront. I sat in the truck and waited. A few minutes later, he returned with a brown paper bag, which he deposited in the floor of the backseat.
"There was a girl from North Carolina and a woman from Ve-neh-zoo-ay-luh, and they saw my churn and asked, 'Is that an ice cream maker?' I couldn't believe it. You know what a butter churn is, don't you dear? And the molds you put the butter in when it's done? That woman from Ve-neh-zoo-ay-luh, she was 45 years old."
"This young lady has never seen a real hardware store before."
After work yesterday I went to the mall to get a manicure. Ever since working at GRW, the nail on my left pointer finger has been flawed. A line runs up the length of it, causing it to split and break at the tip. I was hoping the manicurist would be able to do something about it, or at least that the procedure would strengthen the nail.
The place I went to, Nail Something in the mall, was run by a group of Vietnamese women who chattered away in their own language as they attended to their customers. A teenage girl took particular interest in my hands, which needed a lot of work. The middle-aged woman taking care of me filed my nails down, then scraped back the cuticles, and then hacked the skin off all the way around. It smarted, and one nail started to bleed.
She applied lotion all up my arms, giving my forearms and hands and fingers a rough but pleasant massage. Then, after I washed my hands, she buffed the nails and painted them clear. I was impatient and didn't let my hands dry long enough before digging in my purse, so she had to touch up the polish on my thumbnails.
The manicure cost $12, and I gave her a $3 tip.
Superman II was on, and I was watching it more out of a sense of curiosity than out of any actual desire to see it.
"I'd rather watch something else, if you don't mind," Sean said. I shrugged and started flipping. "Here," he said, and took the remote. A few clicks later and there was Lenny Briscoe, making some comment about how parking rates in New York City will kill you, which was funny because there was a dead body in the parking lot.
"Are you addicted to this show?"
"Yes."
So we watched three episodes.
Water is so rejuvenating to me. I know I've said this before. But every time I drive over the lake to get to work, I feel so refreshed. Today I was filled with emotion to the point that it brought tears to my eyes. And they were happy tears, for a change.
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2 comments:
Last year while working in Miami for a couple of months I had to get my hair cut.
Now I don't generally like getting my hair cut anyway - too much time spent waiting around as a kid for a slow barber, I guess.
Anyways, I got one of my US colleagues to book me an appointment at a hairdresser on a Saturday morning.
Everyone in the salon is Hispanic and speaking in Spanish. I just end up kind of gesturing. I think a lot of the Hispanics in Miami have real problems with my Yorkshire English accent. I've completely failed to communicate with the room maids in hotels many many times.
You need an interpreter!
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