Wierd animal story 1):
Friday evening, I was sitting at the kitchen table in the guy's appartment, talking to Mike, commenting on the down-right deplorable condition of their kitchen. (Supposedly it had been cleaned by one of the roommates over the break -- didn't look like it to me!!) We were joking -- sort of -- about the possibility of some kind of cockroach take-over of the place, and the need for the Orin guy to show up ASAP, when out of the corner of my eye I caught a flurry of movement on the wall near my head. I turned and came face-to-body with quite possibly the world's largest cockroach scurrying along the wall, right towards me! I scream and jump, Mike screams and jumps, then grabs some kind of hitting device (I don't remember what it was, I just remember it seemed grossly inadequate) and tries to hunt the litter bugger down and kill it. The roach escapes. I leave the apartment, and tell Mike I'm not coming back until they do something about the roach-friendliness of the kitchen. Bleh!!
Wierd animal story 2):
With all of the craziness of the previous weekend (it having been the New Year/New York extravaganza...), I decided this weekend should be a low key, sanity-regaining, weekend-at-home with Blockbuster movies. So Saturday early-evening, the sky newly dark, I hop in the white mini, crank up my tunes, and head the mile or two down the road to the blockbuster. As I pull into the parking lot, I half-notice a strange din over the chorus of the Fall Out Boy song I was listening to, but I only half-notice it because my music is pretty loud. I also notice a dark mass covering the tops of the trees and powerlines, and as I turn off my music and the din I barely noticed over my loud music becomes a complete cacophony of continous, high-pitched screeching noises, and I realize the dark mass is -- I kid you not -- hundreds of black birds covering the treetops, treebottoms, powerlines -- everything. When I opened the van door, the screeching became even louder. A family walking out of Blockbuster was shouting to each other to be heard as they headed back to their car. It was crazy! Part of me wondered what the Blockbuster people would say if I went in and asked them in what section might I find a copy of "The Birds," but then the thought of them locating it for me, and then having to walk back out, past the troops, with the video under my arm, returning home to watch it -- alone -- made me change my mind. I half-imagined the whole swarm following my little white van home, and perching on the tree outside, making all that noise outside my window as I watched the family farm torn to pieces by their kin (or whatever happens in that movie ... I'm not sure if I've ever seen the whole thing...) so I went the comedy route for the weekend (Little Miss Sunshine = Greatness!!). As fun as I have with my overactive imagination at times, that really wasn't the night to get carried away like that. Because instead of worring about getting chased by a swarm of blackbirds, I really should have been worried about parking my car so close to one of their trees ... which I immediately realized when I returned to my car about 5 minutes later, and then had some cleaning to do...
And now, on a more serious note, my prayer request:
I just found out last night that the pastor at the church I've been attentending has recently been diagnosed with a pretty serious form of cancer. The diagnosis was all of a sudden, and it's been quite a shock for everyone -- especially her family, including her three-year-old son. She is an amazing woman, her church family loves her and will be giving her lots of support and prayers. She has really been a blessing to me, personally, as well; we met for lunch once and talked about plans for my future and other things that had been eating at my heart. She has been an inspiration and guidance to me in just the few short months I've been here, and I'm sure she's affected many more people in equally great, if not greater, ways. So please, pray for her and her family. Thank you!
