Last week, an applicant walked into work.  He had been in a few days earlier trying to find a job.  Regrettably, we didn’t have any positions that he qualified for – like a lot of people.  With the economy the way it is, there aren’t near as many jobs available as there used to be.  I thought that he may be coming back to see if any new positions had become available, but that turned out not to be the case.  Instead of using our computers to surf for jobs, he took out his wallet and handed me a folded up piece of paper.  “I wanted you to have this,” he said.  It was a poem he had written.  Why he wanted me to have it, I don’t know, but I thought I would share it with you guys – misspellings and all.

Determation

life hasn’t been good

with god’s leadership u have hope

u have the ability, determation and willingness

in spite of the odds

i’m here and willing to help anyway possible

i don’t promise it’ll be easy

i know u can find joy, happiness and freedom

with hope and faith u will suceed

This is going to be a teaser post because I don’t want to reveal what exactly we have done until I have pictures.

On Sunday, Phil woke me up bright and early at about 8:30 AM.  This is highly unusual because Phil loves to sleep all day.  Usually, it’s me asking him to get out of bed so that we can enjoy the day doing something outdoors.  And he hates me for it.  So, I guess he was just trying to give me a taste of my own medicine.  Well, anyway, half asleep, Phil informs me that I need to get up and get dressed because we are driving to Atlanta to get some lamb.  Why do we need to go all the way to Atlanta to get lamb, you ask?  There is a grocery store there called Super H Mart, and it sells all sorts of yummy, Asian goodness – food – not people.  Particularly, they sell thinly sliced lamb that we love.  We fell in love with it in China and it was by far our favorite dish.  When we last went to Atlanta in July, we bought several pounds of it.  Seven months later, our supply is nearly gone.  Since having no lamb in the house would make us unhappy, it seemed like a great idea.  An hour later, we were in the car and on our way to Atl.

30 minutes away from our destination, we came across the Pendergrass Flea Market.  The place is huge and I mean HUGE.  Phil had been there before, but since I hadn’t, he wanted to let me see it.  The place was a complete mad house.  There were people everywhere.  It took something like ten minutes to find a parking place!  Once inside we strolled around seeing if there was anything worth buying.  I really didn’t see anything, I never really do at flea markets, but Phil found a Playstation 1 controller that he needed.  Phil thought they had animals, so we walked around looking for any they might have. We didn’t see any at first.  As we were just about to leave I saw a sign with pets written in red, pointing down a hall way. I think it was the one area we hadn’t looked before giving up.  Why does that always seem to happen?

I’ll give you this much:

It’s cute.

It’s furry.

It’s about 9 weeks old and weighs about 1 oz.

It isn’t native to South Carolina or any state for that matter.

I’ve wanted once since I first saw them at an exotic pet show at Jamil Temple years and years ago.

He makes the strangest, but cutest sounds ever.

He’s nocturnal by nature.

And his name is Quantum.

And for the record, this was totally Phil’s idea.  I just gave him permission.

Can you guess what it is?  I’ll take some pictures of him soon.  He’s a little scared right now, and I don’t want my camera to cause him any more stress. I imagine that when he gets acquainted with his surroundings – he is going to become a regular on this little blog.  I hope you all like him as much as Phil and I do.

PS My boss said that I just need to get married and have a baby.  Whereas I am sure that would help with the need to have something to love at all times,  human babies aren’t furry and they don’t purr.

Shopping for my brother’s birthday gifts, I over heard a conversation between a little boy and his father.

The Little Boy:  “Germs are fluffy.”

Father: “No they aren’t.”

The Little Boy:  “Oh, yeah, that’s right.  They are little black bugs that live in your body.”

It made me smile.

One year down, a half a billion more to go before I can retire.  🙂  And only four more years until I am vested!

Time flies by so fast.  I look at my calendar and I know it has been a year since I started working for USC, but it sure as heck doesn’t feel like it.

For the most part, I think my job has been pretty good to me.  It’s not real stressful, and my co-workers are nice.  Like everyone, I wish I got paid more, but oh, well.  Maybe one day. Not this year, though.  Not even a percent.  🙁  It’s the economy’s fault and the fact that I work for the State.

Perhaps the coolest thing about my job is that I can take one free class a semester.  I have yet to take advantage of this – mainly because I can’t decide what I want to do yet.  I debating if I should take ballroom dancing in the fall.  Anyone want to do it with me?

And actually, my one year at USC was on February 13th, but I was too lazy then to blog about it.

Oh, and I’ve finally scanned in all of my postcards, so I hope to start doing an Ana thing, soon.  People seem to like it.  Plus, it will give me something to blog about and I will learn in the process.  🙂

While waiting in line at Shoney’s breakfast buffet, I overheard this conversation between two waitresses.

Waitress 1: “You know what?  Never mind.  I’ll wipe down your tables for you.”

Waitress 2: “I just love working with assholes.”

~~~

While walking out of Spencer’s, I overheard this conversation between two young men.

Young Man 1: “Don’t hit my burn.  What the fuck were you thinking?”

Young Man 2:  “. . .  . . .”

~~~

Waiting for my mom in the food court of the mall, two girls walked past me.

Girl 1:  “Well, your such a fugly bitch!”

Girl 2: “laugh laugh laugh”

~~~

I just love listening to what people have to say.

A long time ago, I created a post that asked who my readers were.  I was curious.  Most bloggers are.  And well, I’m still curious.  Plus, I think enough time has passed to take roll again.  I’m pretty sure that my viewers have changed a little since I left China and started writing about my daily life here.

So, if you would be so kind to drop me a comment, letting me know you are, how you found me, or anything else you feel like sharing, I would greatly appreciate it.

The last time I did this, I got six comments.  This go around, I am going to shoot for the stars and hope for eight.  If you commented last time, and you are still with me – thanks.  Feel free to leave me some love again.  🙂 Comments, as you know, make me extremely happy.

I was reading through some of the Yahoo! news yesterday and came upon something very amusing.  Apparently, pranksters have been hacking into electronic road signs and replacing the real warnings with things like “Daily lane closure due to zombies”, “Raptors ahead – caution”, and “Zombies in area. Run!”.  So far it has happened in Collinsville, Illinois, Austin, Texas, and a county in Indiana.

Photo by Chris Nakashima Brown

Had I been an actual witness to any of these signs, I probably would have crashed my car laughing hysterically.  I would so pay money to see something like that on my way to work.  It would so break up the monotony of my day.  You can read the rest of the article here.

Finding out Michael Phleps’ smoked up at the University I graduated from just isn’t good enough.

96.7 WLTY AKA Steve FM is by far my favorite radio station in Columbia.  I love it because it is a no nonsense type of station.  It does what a radio station should do – play music – any kind of music – all the freaking time.  I don’t have to listen to some stupid disc jockey yapping in my ear about stupid stuff I don’t care about.  I get to listen to music – a nice range of music.

Steve FM’s slogan is “Playing Whatever We Want”, and I think for the most part they do.  There are certain types of songs they play more than others, but just when you least expect it, a song you have either A) never heard of or B) haven’t heard in ages comes on.  I think I listen just to see what will come on next.  🙂

The reason I’m talking about Steve FM is because the other day, driving home from work, a kick ass 80’s song I have never heard of before came on the radio.  I racked my brain trying to figure out who was singing it, but no bands would come to mind.  And since Steve FM doesn’t tell you what song or band is playing, the station’s only real pitfall, I had to try and memorize the lyrics so that I could type them into Google when I got home.  Traffic was horrible, so by the time I did get home, many of the lyrics had escaped me.  All I have to say is, thank God for the internet.  Thank God for Google.  And thank God for YouTube.  I can’t really imagine life without them.  🙂

I thought I had just about heard every 80’s song there ever was, but apparently not, because some how this song has stayed out of my radar since 1988.  Phil said he heard it before and that he knew I had, but I really believe I haven’t.  It was even in the credits of “Napolean Dynamite”, but I really don’t remember hearing it.  Perhaps I didn’t watch the credits.  I don’t know – either way, I think it is an awesome song, and thought I would share it with you.  The name of the song is “The Promise” and it was done by the band When in Rome.

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=jqNZekTvzBU[/youtube]

That isn’t the orginal video, of course, but I liked it much better.  Do any of you remember this song?

I was going through the pictures on my computer and decided to post a few that have never made it on this little blog of mine before.  As you can tell by the dates on the pictures, they are all rather old.  I need to go through all of my China pictures and see if there are any interesting ones I forgot to post.  I’m sure there has to be a few.  Phil and I took something like 5,000 pictures.  And if there aren’t any more photos, I’m sure there are still a few blog worthy videos.  I’ll try to find some this weekend.

I’m anxious for spring to roll around again.

I love taking pictures of flowers for some strange reason.

I am pretty sure that this was taken at Swan Lake in Sumter.

Maybe I will go again this year – get their when more flowers are in bloom.

RIP Dopple

Dopple was my favorite orange cat ever.  He totally could have been a real life Garfield.

RIP Morgan Rose Ireland Yvette DeWitter

She was the best kitty ever!

RIP Thames

Thames talked with every step he took.  He was one strange kitty, but I still loved him.

I found this grasshopper behind One Eared Cow Glass several years ago.

He stayed on that stick just long enough for me to snap a picture of him.

I don’t even know what this is, but it’s scary!!

Anyone have any idea what this critter is called?