What Goes Around

I think that the Indian street dogs are the toughest around. They seem to be able to survive the strangest ailments. A few years ago there was a dog that snuck into our house while I was picking Micah up from the bus in front of our house. He saw it go in thankfully. The silly dog went into the bathroom and laid down. I couldn't get him to move. I tried pizza and yelling at him to leave, but he just wouldn't. So I went to the neighbor's house and told them that I had a dog that wouldn't leave. They stopped a guy on the street to have this guy help get the dog out. There was a door from the bathroom outside, so it really wasn't a hard walk for the dog, but he just didn't want to go out. So this man had to beat the dog with a stick. There was blood in my bathroom from the dog. I know the dog already had a bloody ear when he came in, but I imagine he got more wounds from the beating. Well a couple of days later, this same dog came walking down the stree...

"In A City With No Hope" by Linzie Joerres "There's a girl who's all alone in a city with no hope All around her, girls are dying, she sees it and she's crying 'cause it all started with their trying to find a better world than the ones they'd always known. She sits alone on the damp floor in the looming dark. Her face has gotten hard and dull and painfully stark. Her heart is growing cold here as she fights the fear of growing old here, forever trapped here in these walls, in this cage. She fights the rage. She was lied to and deceived by the hope of something more. She was tricked into believing that there was something worth fighting for. The woman and man, they opened up their hands to her, promised life to her dreams, made her think that these things were obtainable, reachable, but as she reached, the shackles came down on her hands, and all of her plans went up in smoke as they forced her to smoke to get her addicted. Her life thus far has...

Last week was my turn to teach Sunday School to the 3-5 years olds. I seem to walk away from these classes feeling like a huge failure of a teacher. I doubt I can bring myself to volunteer for the next season. Our story was the blind man that Jesus healed. The lesson was about Jesus caring for us. I asked the kids if they knew how Jesus healed the man. I gave them a hint that it was something gross. The first kid said, "Did he touch his head?" I told him that it isn't gross to touch someone's head. So the next kid said, "Did he lick his head?" I love the answers they give. I explained how Jesus spit in the dirt and then put the dirt on the man's eyes. Then we played a game. I put a blindfold on a kid and handed them a toy or something. They guessed what it was and I would ask, "Can a blind person play with this car?" or "Can a blind person read this book?" They would respond, "NO!" Even when the thing was a comb...

Sometimes I feel the urge to hurt someone. There, I said it. Now my counselor can prescribe something for me. Okay, and here is more, sometimes I talk about death. I blame it on my dad. He says he thinks about death too. But today I am only talking about hitting someone, not killing anyone. There are some really stupid people in the world. For instance, those people who beat children. If a grown person, male or female, thinks that it is okay to hit a small person so hard that they can't move their arm, then I think that the grown person needs to know how it feels. Just punishment I think. I would like to walk up to that person with a metal rod and smack them on their arm while yelling at them and say, "How does that feel???!!!!!" I doubt Jesus would do something like that. And really, I wouldn't either, but I imagine it.

Actually, this is day three of being sick. I haven't been sick in years. I also make fun of people who get sick all the time, so this is probably only right for me to get sick. I am a really lame nurse to sick people. I have no patience (ha ha). But now it is my turn and I am kind of feeling sorry for myself. No one has offered to massage my belly or bring me anything. I have had to ask for things. Boo hoo. So here is what it is like being sick. First thing I did was eat too much food. It just sat at the base of my ribcage for the whole night. Nothing digested. So finally at 1AM I decided I needed to get things moving one way or the other. I stood at the toilet thinking about gross things. That didn't work. So then I did some twists and bent over. That started things. I gagged a few times and then presto, the food came up. I felt like a sausage maker. It just came out of me like a big chunk of dinner. I could have put it on a plate and served it. Boy did I ...

This week we had Sports Day at Micah's school. It was a beautiful day and lots of fun activities happened. But it ended with a downer, the awards ceremony. The smaller classes get ribbons for participating, but not the older (Micah) kids. Then they had out ribbons for all the 3rd place awards, then second, and then first. Micah didn't get any ribbons. He did great at many of the events but being the youngest class in the 6th-8th grade level really is a bummer. I'm sure he was almost in tears because I was almost in tears. And what made it worse is that there is another Micah in this age group and so they would call "Micah" and it would always be the other one. I wish we would have left earlier and avoided the whole awards ceremony.

I have been tired of my old clothes for some time now and needing to get fresh things to wear. I go to the American Women's Thrift Store occasionally and try to find things there, but lately there has been nothing. I get a shirt or two now and then, but not pants. So today I decided that since I was going to the mall to meet a friend, I might as well go early and try to find some pants. Clothing in India is made differently than clothing for Americans. Indians are so much skinnier and just built differently than I am. I knew that it was going to be a challenge to find pants, but I didn't know it would be impossible. First I went to the cheap store at the mall. I looked at the jeans section, which were a bit pricey for me, but there was a sale going on. I tried on several pairs that wouldn't go up pass my thighs. I left that section and walked the rest of the store. Tried on a few more pants that didn't fit and went back to the jeans. I asked a lady for help. ...