sightings today:
hijabi waiting at the metro station
hijabi outside a restaurant in the loop
two latter day saint missionaries next to me at an intersection
hijabi in a minivan texting at a red light.
according to a friend, it’s raining hijabis. and according to me, that’s even better than it raining men. is it wrong to be a little disappointed the missionaries didn’t try to convert me? though i had my headphones in and didn’t look at them but to check the name badge on their pockets…
Dear Matisyahu,
I love you. I’m sorry I listened to those naysayers commenting on “Youth” It’s fantastic.
❤ dana.
Jerusalem, if I forget you, let my right hand forget what it’s supposed to do.
So, on a completely different note: I started this book by Stephen Prothero, Religious Literacy and it has me thinking about my own religious literacy. I have a good general knowledge of world religions, and I remember stuff from when I was a kid about Bible stories. But some people, man! They really know their Bible! I have a good overview of it, but I can’t quote anything at length. (I can make up faux psalms though).
Anyway, I know when Isaac said he read most of the Bible, I think he finished it up with “and I’ll never do that again” but, I think once again, I am resolved to read … some more of it. at least. We’ll see.
Stats for the day:
2 covered women at the serbian orthodox festival (not counting me)
14 hijabis at the mall
1 suspected pentecostal at the mall.
So, I mentioned to a coworker that I got in to nursing school, in a fairly large city. She said something along the lines of “I wouldn’t want to move there, it’s so much more expensive.” And then spent some time describing how dangerous the city is.
I paused and for a few minutes kinda let this get to me. And then I thought to myself, “Fuck them! I lived in Yemen!” Really, I’m going to let a few people saying how dangerous an American city is affect my life? Because if I did that, I wouldn’t have gone to Morocco or Yemen. I wouldn’t be planning on returning to the Middle East or have the Russia dream I have now. I want to work in the Rural Middle East. Heck, if I listened to some people around here, I probably wouldn’t have started covering because it might be dangerous.
So, last week sometime the bike got a flat tire.
I decided this would be my very own adventure, seeing as I’ve never changed a bike tube before. I went to Walmart and bought a couple inner tubes & a changing kit, which consisted of a cheap wrench and two of those things to take the tire off the wheel.
I go home and i’m trying to use the cheap wrench to take the nuts off, that are holding the wheel onto the frame. It’s just not working. I go looking for a bigger wrench and there’s none at the house. Of course now it’s dark and I don’t want to go to the barn. So I wait a while.
Until this morning. (um, I’m using the term “morning” loosely here, I mean early afternoon) I go to check the mail and figure while I’m out there, I’ll go over to the barn. I hike out but once there, I realize it’s locked. Which I’m sure is a good thing, and then I realize that I might end up with seriously frustrated brothers if I just take the wrench from out there to the house for the bike.
So, I go to Journagans to buy one. Damn, those things are expensive! Anyway, I buy my wrench and finally get home to work on it. I successfully get the wheel off. Once I had a non-shitty wrench, the nuts were no problem at all. I take the inner tube, wheel & tire to the garage and halfheartedly attempt to find where the old tube was leaking. No such luck. I start filling the new tube. I get it into the tire and on the wheel and inflate to the correct pressure.
I get it back on the bike, but as I’m doing so, I’m wondering if that’s a bulge “teh interwebs” warned me about. *shrug* I dunno. So, now it’s time for the test ride. I get out and down the street. I decide to do the half mile out/half mile back route and as I’m turning into the driveway I notice a sound like something’s rubbing against the tire.
Yeah, so that must be one of those “bulges” I take the bike inside and try to take the wheel off. Why the hell won’t this tire come off? It. Just. Won’t. Come. KA-BLAOW!. off…
And even after the tube burst, the damn wheel won’t come off. I finally finangle the wheel from the chain. I think I’ll work on re-replacing the tube tomorrow…
So, I have a car, its name is PANTS! (dumb story, which is the only endearing thing about the car) PANTS! has given me lots and lots of shit during the time that I’ve owned it, but in the past 18 months since I’ve been back in the states, it’s been real hell. Towed thrice (in six months), to the mechanic (who happens to be my uncle, so glad I trust him!) five times. Most recently two simplish repairs. I got it back the week after the 4th, took it to Springfield and enrolled in my classes for the fall semster and got Zeke & I signed up for dog training at PetSmart in the next week. It worked like a charm. Then Sunday, I wanted to take it to church. I got about three miles from home when I realized that I wouldn’t be able to make it because the shifting & accellerating were just wrong.
Shit. I just got it back, and now another problem. So I decided, Fuck it. I am not fixing this car. I refuse.
So, I have my mother’s Geo, I call it the Little Blue Death Bucket (or LBDB for short). Between it & PANTS! I’ve maintained vehicular transportation. But the LBDB is getting old. And I’ve been warned that its lifespan is coming to an end, sometime, and that long distances & highway driving will bring that end faster.
My uncle, the mechanic, has been telling me for a while that I need to get a new car. (new, new to me, whatever — something more reliable) but I can think of a million things I’d rather buy than a car.
So, I’m prepping for a carless time. I’ve borrowed a friend’s bike that I’ve ridden a couple of times. I’m planning out routes to get me to work, away from cars. I’m thinking of people in my church that I can get rides from if that day comes.
I’m planning on riding to work, at least a few times a week to get used to it and to attempt to preserve car life.
I know I’m crazy. I know I should probably just buy a car. But I just don’t want to. It’s not about the environment. It is, in part, due to money. Car, registration, oil changes, gas, insurance, and other things I’m forgetting. It’s also the dependancy on other people, mainly mechanics. I want to be able to fix whatever might be wrong. I want my machinery to be simple enough for me to at least be able to see what is wrong. I want to depend on myself for my own movement.
At least in theory. I might change my mind when it’s no longer theoretical. Which hopefully will remain in the future.
let there be light*
and there was light
and we saw that it was good
and it was evening
and it was morning
the first day.
*my kitchen is better lit than it has ever been.
Historically, and by ‘historically’ I mean in my personal history, May 15th is a VERY important day and I’m not quite sure what to do with it, honestly.
Today was also important because I finished my finals for the semester, plus I asked a professor to write a letter of recommendation for nursing school. (oh, and she agreed!)
I had stayed up late writing papers and doing the extra credit assignment for my psychology final. The final itself was the same lenth as a normal test and thus took about twenty minutes to take. Which is good because that means I got out early and went to Springfield for some post-finals retail therapy.
Or something like that. I needed a watch for work. I had blown through several Wal*Mart watches. They break quickly for me, given my line of work. I have to wash my hands frequently. So, I thought since I’d go somewhere a little higher class than WalMart for a watch that might outlast a month, I’d go to the mall and just hit up all the places I’ve been wanting to go for a while. So I went to Joanne’s and bought some fabric for a pet project that I’ve been planning in my head for a while. I’m not quite sure if what I bought will fit in to the plan right now, but I’m sure if not, I’ll find something else for it. Besides, I’m all about getting that pet project fabric from the sale/clearance section.
Then to Target. For some reason I always forget that buying chocolate in the summer is not a good idea. By the time I got that stuff home it was all one big blob. But it’s still tasty like whoa. I also bought shampoo! That’s exciting for me because it means my 16 + month resolve to use up the soap pantry build up is slowly paying off. I am out of shampoo! I still have enough soap and conditioner to last until the Zombiepocalypse, but I’m on my way.
And then to the mall where I bought my beautiful watch. It’s a Relic from Sears. I really wanted a Fossil, but their designs kinda sucked. Plus, apparently Relic is made by Fossil, it’s small, water resistant, has dot for ALL the numbers and a second hand (all these are important for me because I use it for pulses and V/S at work and I don’t want to wait forever for the second hand to make it to the next quarter of a minute mark, you know?) and it was 25% off, so yay all the way around. I also ended up getting a completely unnessisary skirt, but it’s cute. Oh, and Flip Flops. My old ones were about to fall apart.
The last Springfield stop was the Catholic store. I had sent my “Immaculate Heart of Mary” prayer card to a friend who I thought might need her a little more than I did a while ago. I kept thinking that I would make it back and get another one and I had realized that I really missed her! So I got another one, Two, actually, for good measure and just in case. YAY IHM!
And if that weren’t enough as I was about to turn off to go home, I decided that no, I really should go put gas in the Little Blue Death Bucket, even though I was exhausted. So I went on into my small hometown. As I was filling up the tank, I swear to God, I heard this sound, and I thought to myself, “If I didn’t know better, I’d think that was the Call to Prayer from a mosque.” Seriously, long slow sounds of chanting. And so I listened. and I heard “ALLAHU AKBAR! Allahu Akbar!” coming from another car, I assumed. I tried looking around the car in front of me, to identify where exactly it was coming from, which I never did because I’m pretty sure it was some sort of intro to a song or something and all of a sudden it was gone, lost in some other song.
It was surreal, to say the least.
I slept in this morning and debated back and forth about going to Springfield to the mall. I know I don’t need anything, but man, I want to see what’s out. I want a new skirt!
So, I wait around, call a friend. Finally I decide that, hey, since I’m already dressed, I might as well go. I get there, I’m driving in the parking lot and I see a family. Father, pushing a stroller, a couple children walking near him and his wife. Who happens to be wearing a brown abaya/jilbab, lacy brown scarf and a half niqaab tied under the hijab.
It is good that I came today. I’m calling the day a Full House. I ended up seeing three niqaabis and two women in bonnets! They made me feel ridiculously ‘undercover’ in my white-with purple-pink-orange flowered kerchief. Which, by the way, was complimented by the sales lady at New York & Company. She was a very good sales lady. Creepily so.
Plus, I got three sweaters on sale and three tshirts to replace some I bought to take with me to Yemen. Yeah, they were getting holes in them. Unfortunately, I have to go back tomorrow because one of the sweaters I bought didn’t get that security tag removed. What will tomorrow bring?
how is it possible to be uplifted and disheartened simultaneously? or at least swung back and forth between the two in just the one day?
Holy Jesus Snack Cup 