It’s a good thing we walked 2 miles to church this morning. Our effort to save $8 in bus fares was richly rewarded. Here comes another dorky fan moment for the Cool Family!
As the previous post mentioned, we decided to walk to church. East Side to West Side, across Central Park around 10am. As usual, Cool Dad and I argued about which path to take while standing in front of the Great Lawn. We took the path I had originally planned for us (you’re welcome, CD).
A few moments later, CD was pushing the stroller and I was walking by his side. We noticed some men in black suits with radio earpieces. I casually looked up and noticed a very familiar man walking with two women. He was walking RIGHT past us and his face was shining in the sun. The sunglasses and height triggered my memory–BONO!
Here comes the dorky part. I stopped dead in my tracks after he passed, grabbed CD’s arm, and said “That’s Bono!” We both looked back and saw police golf carts following the group. And “casually” we turned the stroller to follow them. Yeah…we were really playing it cool. There’s no way we looked suspicious at all. [-10 cool points]
As we followed, the group seemed to be gaining speed and leaving us behind. We strained our eyes to see the back of his glorious head and noticed three people were trailing behind and then veered to a separate path to the right. The men in black continued around the Great Lawn.
“Surely the security guys wouldn’t leave Bono and his two ladies (we think one was his wife Ali) to fend for themselves,” we thought. This clever security tactic led us away from the man himself, as two of the security guys made an interesting loop ahead of us. They ended up coming right toward us. One guy on each side of us, while they headed back to where we last saw Bono.
“Say hi to Bono for us,” we said politely as we continued on to church. (Okay, we just wished we had said that.)
The moral of the story: Always listen to your wife when it comes to directions. You might end up running into the biggest and coolest rock star in the world.
Today, I have an interview for a part-time internship that I would love to get. I am excited about it, but right now, also feeling a bit bummed. Here’s what happened:
I went to Kinko’s to print my resume from my computer. When I sat down at the laptop station, I noticed the gentleman in the station next to me writing something on paper. No computer.
As I set things up, my neighbor peered over to see what I was doing, and then looked at a lady behind us. He excused himself for interrupting her and asked her for advice on how to write a resume. From his accent, he was clearly from another country.
“I just moved here, and I’m trying to get a job in this area.”
The lady kindly, but distantly, suggested that he search Google for help on making a resume. He asked her if she would do it and print it out for her, but she replied that it would cost her money to print. He asserted that he would pay her back, but she finished her business and made the computer available to him.
I felt a little guilty, sitting there with a resume on the screen, fully capable to advise this man. I decided that I would complete my work and then come to his rescue. I was already picturing what I would say to him and how I would say it.
It was then that little things started going wrong. Plugging in the provided USB cable didn’t work. So, I asked a staff member, and he had me install some software from a CD. That didn’t work either. I dug around in my computer’s setup, and there was no logical reason why these things were happening.
Then the Kinko’s man bailed me out. He had me put the file on his USB drive, and he printed the resume from it — free of charge, not couple of dollars it should’ve cost me. Thankfully, someone went out of their way to help me. Now it was my turn.
But he was gone.
A man sat at a Kinko’s hoping that someone would take the few minutes to help him help himself and possibly his family. He even reached out. I saw it all take place. I chose to take care of my own business first, although time was no issue, and he left. Dejected, angry, hopeless — I don’t know.
I had the chance to show love. I chose to do it on my own terms. I was wrong.
When the opportunity arises and the Spirit prompts, please obey. Don’t put off the joy of sharing God’s love with someone. It’s not cool at all. [-15 cool points]
(photo: SOCIALisBETTER)
Rachel came up with a very fun idea that we’re going to try.
Around here, we regularly report on what we did over a given weekend and then add or subtract cool points (the world-renowned total that assesses our current coolness – at your left) accordingly. Well, Rachel had the brill idea of opening this activity to everyone here and making it a contest!
(i heard some kids in the UK say “brill”, which I thought was brilliant, so here I am busting it out trying to be cool [-2 cool points])
Here’s how we’ll try it:
1) Spend this weekend doing the coolest things you can think of. Like going to see a hip movie. Or playing some trendy sport or game. Or sing and dance to Lionel Richie’s “All Night Long” in a desperate effort to entertain the baby for 2.1152 seconds. [-2 cool points]
2) Email your list of activities to us. Our email address is in the right sidebar for y’all reading RSS. I will need all entries in by Monday night.
3) On Tuesday, I will post people’s activities, but I’ll keep them anonymous. Then in the comments, you all decide which person had the coolest weekend.
4) On Wednesday, we will announce the winner of the first-ever Cool Duel!!
Clear as mud? No worries — this will work and it’ll be fun as long as you all participate, which I just know you will. So get out there this weekend, be the cool selves you are, and report back on Monday!!
And thanks, Rachel!
note: yes, ‘duel’ refers to a contest between two people, but “Cool Duel” sounds so much better than “Cool Contest Open to Everyone Who Reads This Blog Only Because They Got Lost on the Information Superhighway and Is Too Embarrassed to Ask for Directions.”
(photo: Jonathan_W)
My one year trial of doing the stay-at-home mum thing has come to an end. I wasn’t a baby person before, but now Cool Baby has me totally smitten. As frustrating and challenging as it can be, I think I might love this gig.
How do I know? Because the following list has been forming in my head for the past few days.
Top 5 Ways to Ensure the Security of My Job as a SAHM
- Try not to tick off my husband. Thankfully, he is very supportive of my job. The least I could do is be nice to him as he spends all day in a closet-sized office to pay our bills.
- Cut a room off of our house. We have a 3bd/2ba and one of those 3 bedrooms is a complete waste of space. A dungeon for storage of anything we don’t know what to do with. If we moved into a 2/2, we could slash our house payment significantly and be forced to get rid of junk. Plus, there’s that thing everyone says about 2/2’s…you can’t sell them. Another plus! We couldn’t upgrade back up to a 3/2 even if we wanted to!
- Eat CB’s leftovers plus beans & rice every day for lunch. This could keep me pretty healthy too.
- Get a tiny eyebrow ring and dye a prominent fuchsia streak into my hair. Definitely the most fun idea. “Sorry, Cool Dad, nobody wants to hire me for office work for some reason.” I can already hear CD suggesting I work at Hot Topic. Would I gain or lose cool points for that career move?
- One word: Homeschool! It may be the peace corps of parenting, but it would get me at least another 20 years of job security.
The result: one supportive, minimalist, skinny, punk homeschooling mum. I like it.
This post is a part of Works for Me Wednesday.
(photo: yarnivore)
