Just Call Me Grace (re-post)

I'm still buried, so I'm putting up another old post this week. Enjoy!

Saturday, November 19, 2011

Just Call Me Grace

The other day at work, I was in the middle of a discussion, holding a cup of coffee I thought I had finished. At one point I got excited and started talking more with my hands - only to end up covered in "Sumatra Blend" and Irish Creamer. Which reminded me of another time when I did something very similar in front of *Joe (name changed to protect the innocent).

Ah Joe.

Joe was a guy I worked with years ago that I had a little crush on. He was a grad student who was interning for the office I was detailed to at the time. This was about a year after 9/11 happened and I was still working at the White House but my boss was asked to go help support the office that was creating the new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) a few blocks away. She asked me to join her.

And I did, not only because that was a freaking cool thing to be a part of, but also because I loved that lady. After 9/11, the White House staff started getting more security training and at one point my boss and I were both in possession of our very own Gas Masks. And my desk faced out into the hallway where people passed every day. My boss and I joked about how funny (and cruel) it'd be if I just casually wore my gas mask while continuing to type away at my computer, just to freak the crap out of anyone who walked by. The fact that my boss agreed that was a good idea made her alright in my book.

Then she told me "there's a guy in our new office that I think you might like."

I was skeptical. But still kept an eye out for this guy. And things were crazy busy at the time, as you can imagine. This office we were going to was full of people like former CIA directors, heads of government departments, etc. And the office itself had to be put together while these people were, you know, only making the biggest change in the Federal Government since the creation of the Department of Defense in 1947.

No pressure.

So I remember standing in my boss' new office at the other building, surrounded by boxes, in my suit with my shoes kicked off in the corner somewhere. And I'm wondering where to even start when a guy walks in looking for my boss.

Ah. You must be sexy Joe.

I can only imagine how much of a hot mess I appeared to him as I looked up confused and shoe-less.

Our conversation was brief (and I'm sure I was red-faced the whole time) but we actually became pretty good friends throughout our time there. And we also flirted a little, though he had a girlfriend (OF COURSE), so I always wanted to be cute around him.

And I always failed miserably.

And the ridiculous thing is - we only worked together there for a few months. But because of my internal homing device, and because this town is a regurgitating spin cycle of people in various government-related roles, I ended up running into him in two other jobs after that.

Leading to these incidents:

• While still at that office, I occasionally had to get briefing materials quickly to the west wing -- a few blocks away -- which lead me to just start bringing running shoes to work. So one morning, as Joe was calmly walking down the street towards our office like a normal person, he encounters me running like a crazy person towards him, wearing my suit and sneakers, carrying a binder. Strike two for looking sane to this guy.

• After DHS was up and running, I went back to my job at the White House and Joe - became a Secret Service Agent. (Because he wasn't already attractive enough....are you kidding me with this?) And one night I was walking down the sidewalk in Chinatown - and I randomly see Joe. With his agent suit and earpiece. Guarding the Bush Twins. Yeah. No big deal. They were apparently inside the restaurant nearby. He and I were both surprised to run into each other and as we give each other a quick hug - HIS EARPIECE GETS STUCK TO MY SHIRT. Yep. Me=Graceful.
• After that, I was volunteering at the Republican National Convention in Minnesota and see one of the guys with Presidential nominee McCain.....and it's Joe. Seriously, where am Inot going to run into this guy...
• After that, I was in my current company's headquarters out in Virginia taking training. And during training, I decide to go to a computer lab and check my email. And I KID YOU NOT, as I log out, I look up -

And there's Joe.

He has apparently joined my company. And just happens to also be at our headquarters, in the computer lab, the exact same time I am. (And I am never, ever there, typically.)

And here's where we circle back and have the coffee incident.

1. I look terrible. I resent having to take training that day so I'm wearing whatever I found first in my closet and little makeup.
2. What did I find first in my closet? Pink pants. Slightly too small. With coffee stains on them.
3. I'm so addled at running into him, that I start to gesture towards my training name tag to explain why I'm there -

And I forget I'm HOLDING A COFFEE CUP. And spill coffee on my own shirt.

The last time I saw Joe he had another cool job and had left my company. But I'm sure I'll run into him again in a year or so and I'll probably have toilet paper stuck to my shoe or my pants will spontaneously fall down to my ankles or something. Just another day.....

Ethiopia (AKA The Post About Baboons)

I don't know why it's taken me so long to write about one of my favorite trips. Probably because there were so many things that I loved about it, that it's hard to start telling it all. So I'll give you the short-ish version and some photos instead.

My church has sort of a sister church in Addis Ababa and a group of us travelled over there several years ago to help them get started. While Africa was probably the most exotic place I'd visited to date, I did have quite a bit of travel under my belt by that point.

As opposed to Sara, this sweet Kentucky girl who roomed with me, who had never left the country. Period.

In fact, she'd never even been camping. She'd never had to use the bathroom outdoors. So I love that this girl picks ETHIOPIA to cut her travel/adventure teeth.

But it did not come without mishap.

While we were on safari, Sara had such a hard time dealing with the idea of peeing outdoors, that she had to use a portable toilet seat that she brought with her from the U.S.

I didn't even know they made such things. But here's Sara, in the middle of Awash National Park, among lions and tigers and monkeys -- sitting on a toilet seat propped up by two metal legs attached.

I cheered for her when she finally had success.

We'll get back to her shortly.

So I've alluded to baboons several times. Not that they were a huge part of entire trip, we actually did quite a few different things throughout our time there including swimming in natural hot springs (where someone passed out), building an elderly woman's mud hut (where I vomitted up my malaria pill), and visiting one of the most exquisite hotels I had ever seen, right there in the midst of poverty in Addis (where I ran into, no joke, members of President Bush's staff that I recognized and later found out that he was on his way there for an AIDS initiative summit. Internal Homing Device! SO ridiculous...)

but one of my favorite parts of the trip was that safari. We rode around on top of SUVs, seeing animals I'd never even heard of, then camped out in the national park and literally could hear lions breathing at night. And also sharing our camp, were many baboons. So many, that we had to have armed guards protect our belongings because apparently baboons are natural theives. They did manage to get away with some of our things but they were so entertaining to watch, we really didn't mind. What we did mind though?

They pooped on one of us.

Guess which unsuspecting American was the lucky one?

Sara. The Virgin Traveller. Of course she was their target.

So that added to the safari fun. We also took a day and saw some of the tribes that live far outside the city. Many of the people in these tribes had never seen a white person before so you can imagine what a scene it was for all of us to meet. And who was their favorite white person?

Yep. Sara!

I didn't mentioned that Sara is nearly translucent. She has pale blonde hair, blue eyes, and skin color akin to a snowman.

These people were facinated by Sara. I look around and she is being swarmed, with people staring at her and touching her in awe.

Ha! This girl is never going on a trip again.

The last adventure I'll mention did not, however, so much directly affect Sara as it did - our pastor.

To give you a hint, his blog post title from that day was this:

Ethiopia: Held at Gunpoint

Ahem. So he admits that was a little over dramatic, but basically what happened was we stopped for lunch along the road and our pastor and assistant pastor start videoing a herd of cattle ("Zebus" - they were everywhere!) and discover that the locals expect payment for photography. Long story short, my pastor ended up with an AK-47 pointed at him before handing money to the shepherd and getting the heck out of there. (You can read his account here). I managed to get a pic right around the time of altercation here:

I've posted several more pics below. Enjoy!

 

When Church Gets Awkward

I mentioned last time that I just started a new semester of both grad school classes and "small groups" at my church. Small groups are basically bible studies where you have groups of people hang out each week and actually talk, as opposed to often times in church where you can just slink into the back row and never interact with humans if you so desire. Which is typically how I attend because:

A. our church meets in a movie theater so it's quite easy to hunker down in a back row fairly unnoticed.

B. I go to Sunday Morning service = I will be hunkering down because I typically don't enjoy human interaction of any kind first thing in the morning.

C. the church gives us free coffee and there's really nothing/no one that can top that in my mind, first thing in the morning, so it's best if me and Coffee just sit by ourselves.

But of course, because of my Internal Homing Device issue, where I run into people I know in the strangest of places, I sometimes can't just slink in unnoticed because things like THIS happen (where old significants of my past who do not typically attend my church show up with their new, overly friendly, children just to confuse me.)

Side note - funny enough, I hadn't seen the guy from that incident since it happened... until last week when he was getting coffee and I ended up in line right behind him. His significant other (baby's mama? wife? I'm not sure...) was also standing there and I think he got nervous because he just BLURTS out "HEY! HOW'S WORK!" to me immediately.

How's work?? We've seen each other all of two times in the last 6 years and we don't have anything to do with each other's work. That's like running into a friend you haven't seen in a decade and the first thing you say is "HEY! WHAT'S IN YOUR REFRIGERATOR?" 

It completely threw me.

Side note within a Side note: it reminds me of when my coworker in the cube next to me kept saying "Happy New Year" to a client LONG after the new year had passed. Apparently the client kept saying it during their conversations for like a week or two after New Years and my coworker thought it was funny to see how long it would last so he kept doing it because the client seemed oblivious. So in February, I'd still hear them having random conversations that would end with my co-worker saying something like "...ah, yeah, good meeting! haha....Happy New Year." It made me laugh.

So back to church guy. As if it wasn't awkward enough that I don't know what his significant other knows about us (or if she knows her daughter is randomly drawing pictures to give to me during church....) he THEN blurts out "Hey I saw blah blah blah the other day and he reminded me of the time I dropped you on your head!"

Um, yes. When this guy and I played kickball together, the team was hanging out after a game and because this guy had a bit of a crush on me, something came over him and he took off running, swooped me up and over his shoulder before I knew what happened, then he SLIPPED and we both came crashing onto a wooden floor. Me - head first. I guess some guys pull girls' hair in class when they like them, some guys nearly paralyze a girl when they like them....

In any case, I now feel even MORE awkward and I just nervously look at his significant other and laugh like "oh, yep I remember! Good to see you! Happy New Year..." (I didn't actually say Happy New Year but wouldn't that have been awesome if I had? Things were already weird. Maybe next time...)

So stuff like THAT happens that prevents me from merely slinking in with coffee and sitting in the back unnoticed. And then the more people I meet in small groups also prevents me from doing so. Which brings us to this week.


My old small group disbanded, so I have to find a new group this semester and I want to find one that is the best fit - so I'm now basically Speed-Dating bibles studies. Like, I emailed at least four different ones near my house so I can "try them on for size" because let's face it, not everyone will appreciate things like The Slap Game (here) or understand why I pay to fling myself down a hill in a giant ball (like here). I'm gunna need that kind of understanding if I'm going to open up to a group about spiritual matters!

So the first "date" I had with a group was this past Tuesday. And I was having a crabby-pants kind of a day. And when I'm a crabby-pants, I tend to feel the world owes me for no reason. And in that delusion, I was careening through the parking lot of the building where this particular group meets (I couldn't find the place for a while and it had no address on the building so instantly I took my frustration out in my driving, because I'm a responsible adult like that...) and as I leave the lot to get back on the street to park, I see a guy walking. But instead of politely waiting for him to cross in front of me, I barrel through to the road, immediately flip an aggresive U-turn, and slide into street parking next to him. Because I'm annoyed! So I get to drive how I want! Take that Universe! (which is really the perfect attitude going into a church activity...sigh...)

For a tiny second I think "wouldn't it be great if I just acted that way in front of a guy from this group...." Because here's the thing - my church is huge, has many locations, and I likely won't know anyone in this group. But I figure this guy is just a random dude in the neighborhood so no worries.

Then I enter the building...and so does that guy.

And he starts talking to a group of other people by the eleveators...some of whom are holding Bibles.

Craaaaaap.

Then we all get in the same elevator and go to the same floor.

And it turns out not only is this guy in the group - he's the group LEADER that I emailed about the group in the first place.

Nice.

I act like nothing happened and hope he didn't actually see my face when I whizzed past him outside in my car. And as he's introducing the group, he accidentally describes himself as something like "the last surviving member of the group" because I guess the group has been meeting for years, but has changed members a lot. So everyone bursts into nervous laughter because that seems to suggest that the other members DIED OFF and now we are second guessing our choice of group... And as I'm laughing along with everyone else, I'm thinking "Buddy, you are barely the last survivor considering I nearly ran you over downstairs...."

Then I start giggling. And I get that horrible feeling that I'm not going to be able to stop. And I'm smooshed on a couch with three other strangers and I keep getting hit with waves of giggles that I sometimes can't supress. I even start giggling uncontrollably WHILE I'm READING ALOUD at one point....but thankfully I finally got back under control.

So in the end, I'm sure I made a FANTASTIC impression on these people.

I'm planning on trying at least two more groups so fingers crossed that I don't embarrass myself and/or nearly kill anyone else that I might have to see again on Sunday morning...